More and more workers are feeling stressed at work due to security risks

• More workers are worried about security issues than they were this time last year
• Three in four say their recovery tools are too difficult for them to use
• This report says having strong data storage could help

While many of us typically see security as an IT or a leadership issue, it’s actually impacting us more than we’d initially thought. New Object First data found that 91% of workers feel uncomfortably stressed at work because of IT security risks – a seven percentage point increase over last year.

But unfortunately, it’s a double-edged sword because it all boils down to AI. Nine in 10 say AI tools have improved their productivity, but seven in 10 say the growth of AI-powered threats is a key driver behind their stress.

Additionally, fewer than one-quarter (24%) believe their organisation is suitably equipped to deal with those threats.

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While the risk of cyberattacks (50%) is a leading cause for stress at work, high workloads and understaffing (50%) land in joint-first place. Gaps in backup and recovery effectiveness (41%) and pressure to maintain uptime (44%) are also big headaches for workers, implying pressure isn’t coming from direct attacks alone, but workload and operations.

For example, three in four (74%) say that their recovery tools are difficult to use without security expertise, leaving regular knowledge workers at a loss. One in five (19%) even say they feel hopeless and overwhelmed during and after an incident.

Naturally, this stress is impacting productivity, with four in five (78%) remarking that stress negatively affected their job performance. Two in five (39%) even said they’d thought about quitting.

“As critical as technology is to cyber resilience, those responsible for protecting and recovering an organization’s data are just as essential,” company CEO David Bennett concluded.

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