When enough is enough: Investigating the antecedents and consequences of information security fatigue

Abstract

Despite concerns raised by practitioners, the potential downside of the information security demands imposed by organizations on their employees has received limited scholarly attention. Our research focuses on information security fatigue (hereafter security fatigue), which is defined as a socio‐emotional state experienced by an individual who is tired of and disillusioned with security policies and their associated guidelines and procedures. This research delves into the security fatigue concept, investigates its antecedents and reports how fatigue affects employee security policy compliance (and non‐compliance). Since security fatigue is not well articulated in the literature and there is limited understanding of its antecedents and consequences, we take a research approach that affords novel insight into this phenomenon. Specifically, we conduct 38 in‐depth interviews with business and IT professionals, and then use a qualitative approach to construct a model, including seven research propositions, to highlight the key aspects of security fatigue. Our results indicate that four distinct antecedents contribute to security fatigue, which result in three unique consequences. We discuss security fatigue in relation to past theoretical views and related concepts within the security policy compliance literature and identify directions for future research.

Understanding employees’ information security–related stress and policy compliance intention: the roles of information security fatigue and psychological capital

“…D'Arcy and Teh (2019) found that people who feel fatigue may be more likely to use neutralization techniques to violate ISPs. Employees who experience security fatigue may be less likely to strictly comply with the ISP (Furnell and Thomson, 2009; Turel et al , 2019), which has negative consequences for organizational information security efforts (Cram et al , 2021).…”

Panel report: the dark side of the digitization of the individual

“…Rather, security fatigue is a gradual process experienced by employees who have been complying with security guidelines, but this adherence to guidelines becomes more burdensome and difficult over time. My preliminary research on security fatigue suggests that it too can lead to employees' non-compliance with ISP as well as a general minimization of effort toward IS security objectives (Cram et al, 2019b).…”

“…Related to this point, there is evidence that a new phenomenoncalled "security fatigue"is occurring in the workplace. Security fatigue refers to a socio-emotional state experienced by an individual who becomes tired and disillusioned with security-related initiatives (Cram et al, 2019b). Research on security fatigue is at an early stage but it is thought that some employees may experience security fatigue due to the abundance (and perhaps perceived overload) of security-related rules and communications that they experience.…”

Stress, Burnout, and Security Fatigue in Cybersecurity: A Human Factors Problem

“…Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology raised awareness on security fatigue due to its unimpeded effort and challenges on information security (Stanton et al, 2016). Researchers publish articles on security fatigue (Cram, Proudfoot, & D'Arcy, 2019;Stanton et al, 2016); however, business organizations fail to account for the phenomenon. Nobles (2019) argued that issues such as security fatigue continue to plague information security, cybersecurity, and data privacy because human factors practitioners are not engaged in supporting cybersecurity.…”