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Comment from Luke Dash, CEO, ISMS.online
Cybersecurity Awareness Month draws attention to the critical role cybersecurity plays in protecting businesses and it’s important to recognise that for cybersecurity professionals, the challenges they face extend far beyond just one month. The mounting pressures of safeguarding organisations against increased threats, managing multiple compliance mandates, and meeting looming regulatory deadlines are a constant, year-round burden. The growing complexity of cybersecurity demands can take a serious toll on these professionals, often leading to stress, burnout, and increased staff turnover.
Businesses should view this month not just as a time to promote cybersecurity awareness, but as an opportunity to consider how they can support their teams in handling these challenges long-term. Cybersecurity and compliance are not a tick-box exercise; they require ongoing effort, vigilance, and a proactive approach. For many professionals, the pressure to stay ahead of constantly evolving threats while also meeting a patchwork of compliance requirements, often with limited resources, can be overwhelming.
Organisations need to consider more sustainable strategies to alleviate the strain. This might include streamlining compliance efforts by integrating frameworks and automating time-consuming processes, such as monitoring, reporting, and evidence collection. Businesses should also prioritise continuous education and support for their cybersecurity teams, ensuring they have access to the latest tools, training, and technologies to stay current with industry standards and best practices.
Furthermore, creating a culture that recognises and values the mental well-being of cybersecurity professionals is crucial. Providing sufficient resources, establishing realistic expectations, and fostering open communication about workloads can go a long way in preventing burnout.

Comment from Richard Ford, CTO, Integrity360
Cybersecurity Awareness Month is marked with the theme "Secure Our World," and the need to acknowledge the importance of basic security measures like strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, phishing awareness, and software updates. While these fundamentals are critical, they are no longer sufficient on their own. Businesses must go beyond the basics to ensure robust protection.
Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, and traditional methods, although extremely valuable, are often limited by their periodic nature. These approaches can leave gaps in visibility, allowing threats to evolve unnoticed. To truly stay ahead of cyber risks, organisations need continuous monitoring, resilience, and rapid response and recovery capabilities.
Businesses need a clear understanding of what systems, data, services, and networks are essential to the function of their business, and what assets are most likely to be targeted by cyber criminals. When identifying these critical assets, it’s important to consider the financial impact, the potential disruption, and the reputational damage that would result from a security incident involving them. Businesses then need to put incident response and recovery plans in place.
It’s important to include threat hunting and detection mechanisms that can detect and respond to cyber threats. This can be enhanced by implementing security tools such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) or Managed Detection and Response (MDR) systems and threat intelligence or services like Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) to continuously identify and address vulnerabilities and enable organisations to adapt swiftly to new threats.
On top of this, one of the simplest ways businesses can prepare for security incidents is to build an incident response (IR) plan. Creating a clearly-defined incident response plan will enable businesses to outline procedures for detecting, controlling, and remediating security incidents so that employees know how to respond to security events when they occur.
Outsourcing this to a managed incident response service provider can be beneficial in terms of providing on-demand access to an experienced team of cybersecurity experts who can provide emergency support during a cyberattack and proactive guidance on building a high-level internal incident response plan.
By providing prioritised insights, fostering collaboration between security and IT teams, and ensuring continuous improvement, CTEM and IR are just some additional steps that can help businesses significantly strengthen their security posture.