Australian security teams facing more work due to COVID-19

Two-thirds of IT security professionals in Australia agree that their non-security IT workload has increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research from Sophos.

The cybersecurity workload of Australian IT security teams has also increased for 68% of respondents, according to the company’s IT Security Team report.

But despite the increased workload, 67% of respondents reported that team morale improved over the course of 2020.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has enabled IT security professionals to further develop their teams’ cybersecurity knowledge and skills for 73% of survey participants.

Yet due to the growing sophistication of threats triggered by the pandemic and other factors, 52% said they experienced attacks too complex for them to deal with on their own. Due to this growing threat, 82% of Australian respondents expect AI technologies to help deal with the growing number of attacks.

“IT professionals played a vital role in helping organisations to keep going despite the restrictions and limitations necessitated by COVID-19,” Sophos Principal Research Scientist Chester Wisniewski said.

“Among other things, they enabled education institutions to move learning online, retailers to switch to online transactions, healthcare organisations to deliver digital services and care under incredibly tough circumstances, and ensured public entities could continue to provide essential services.

“Much of this will have been done at high speed, with limited equipment and resources available and while facing a rising tide of cyber attacks against the network, endpoints and employees.”

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