CISO Stress Is Rising: Survey Data Shows Security Leaders Under Growing Pressure

Security leadership is becoming a tougher job. According to the 2026 State of Cybersecurity survey from ISACA, 68% of security leaders say their roles have become more stressful over the past five years. Some 71% of CISOs name the increasingly complex threat landscape as their main stressor, up from 63% in 2025.

AI is adding to the strain. CSO Online reports that the rapid growth of AI use in business is widening the security agenda, bringing new types of attack, extending the attack surface to AI infrastructure, and creating governance and control challenges, especially as agentic systems come online. A recent survey from Absolute found that the arrival of Mythos-class AI models has 50% of CISOs considering leaving the profession entirely.

The article says security leaders need to sharpen their strategies and their teams' skills around the most pressing issues. Kyle McMillan, chief cybersecurity officer at Siemens USA, notes that even as CISOs take on governance and business risk duties, their work is still framed around preventing a compromise. He says there is no single formula that suits every organisation. Leaders must understand their own risk profile, IT environment and industry threats, then build a plan around the resources they have, accepting trade-offs along the way.