Over 7 in 10 cybersecurity responders in India face extreme mental strain

New Delhi: More than 7 in 10 (77 per cent) of cybersecurity incident responders in India say they have experienced extreme or considerable mental strain as a result of responding to a major hacking incident, a report showed on Tuesday.

Ransomware has exacerbated the psychological demands of Incident Response (IR) for 94 per cent of respondents in India, said an IBM study.

Sense of duty to protect others was cited among the top reasons.

"The incident responders -- the frontline responders to cyberattacks -- are primarily driven by a strong sense of duty to protect others; a responsibility that's increasingly challenged by the surge of disruptive attacks, from the proliferation of ransomware attacks to the recent rise of wiper malware," said the company.

In fact, 94 per cent of respondents in India stated that the rise of ransomware has exacerbated the psychological demands associated to cybersecurity incidents.

Amid a growing number of cyberattacks in recent years, 53 per cent of incident responders surveyed in India stated it is common to be assigned to respond to two or more overlapping incidents simultaneously.

"The real-world repercussions that cyberattacks now have are causing public safety concerns and market-stressing risks to grow," said Laurance Dine, Global Lead, IBM Security X-Force Incident Response.

"Incident responders are the frontline defenders standing between cyber adversaries causing disruption and the integrity and continuity of critical services," said Dine.

The high demands of cybersecurity engagements also affect incident responders' personal lives, with 68 per cent of respondents in India experiencing stress or anxiety in their daily lives.

Insomnia, burnout and impact on social life or relationships followed as effects respondents cited.