We talk endlessly about threat actors, vulnerabilities, and zero-days. We analyze kill chains and debate the merits of different security frameworks. But we're ignoring one of the biggest threats to our organizations: the burnout of the person in charge of defending them.

CISO burnout is real, and it's a ticking time bomb. The relentless pressure, the 24/7 nature of the job, the constant threat of a career-ending breach—it's a recipe for exhaustion. A recent survey found that nearly half of all CISOs are considering leaving their jobs in the next 12 months due to stress. This isn't sustainable.

When a CISO is burned out, they're not at their best. Their decision-making suffers. They become more risk-averse, or worse, they start missing things. The team culture can turn toxic as the stress trickles down. A burned-out CISO is a vulnerability, an insider threat of a different kind. It's a single point of failure that we're not addressing.

This isn't just a personal problem; it's a business problem. Boards and CEOs need to wake up to the human cost of their security expectations. They need to provide their CISOs with the resources, the support, and the psychological safety to do their jobs effectively. Because if your CISO is running on empty, so is your security program.