Women in Cyber Day: Championing Women in the Field

Cybersecurity is still a male-dominated field, with ISC2 estimating in April 2024 that the percentage of women in the industry is roughly only 20-25%. Likewise, the report indicated that pay disparities continue to exist, particularly for women of colour working in the field.

"This International Women in Cyber Day, it’s important to consider the barriers to entry for women in the industry," says Camellia Chan, CEO and Co-founder, Flexxon. "Whilst a lot has been achieved to help girls and women forge a career in the sector, there’s still more to do."

With such an established lack of diversity and inclusion for women, it is only inevitable that women will face obstacles and biases at work. As a result, women are more likely to leave the industry prematurely due to lack of opportunity, in addition to a lack of support and inclusion - something else that International Women in Cyber Day (IWCD) is working to combat.

September 1st 2024 marks IWCD. The initiative is designed to champion the achievements of women in the cybersecurity industry, whilst raising awareness about the challenges women face in the field.

Advocating for diverse talent

IWCD seeks to call attention to the variation of skills women bring to the cybersecurity sector, in addition to acknowledging more work needs to be done to make the industry more inclusive.

Having diverse perspectives within cybersecurity ultimately enables businesses to better address evolving threats, in addition to closing skills gaps. 

“To effectively guide women on their cybersecurity journey, we must focus on building connections, sharing knowledge and learning from experienced professionals already in the field to make a significant impact in this industry,” says Lynn Dohm, Executive Director of Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS).

“Celebrating women in cyber is an important way to recognise the invaluable contributions women make to the cybersecurity industry. We’ve made tremendous progress in training and mentoring women in cybersecurity. Now, the industry must work to create inclusive environments that enable women to succeed and advance in cybersecurity roles.”

According to Lynn, women frequently outperform their colleagues in all seven NICE (National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education) categories and across all experience levels. Unfortunately, despite such outstanding knowledge, the percentage of women in cyber barely increases each year.

Likewise, women experience a significant lack of advancement opportunities in the cybersecurity workplace.

Businesses must shift to accommodate women in cyber

As disruptive technologies like AI and large language models (LLMs) continue to rise in popularity, the cyber threat landscape is becoming more complex. Threat actors around the world have been able to use these technologies to conduct more sophisticated attacks, including phishing attempts, ransomware attacks and detailed hacks, leaving businesses heavily compromised. 

This is not just essential for the threat landscape, but also for fostering an improved culture of innovative progress.

With these threats making it more difficult for traditional security, the cybersecurity industry ultimately needs to evolve to confront these threats. Mandy Andress, CISO at Elastic, explains how recruiting more women into the field could improve this overall process.

“By increasing the presence of women in these emerging areas and harnessing their expertise, we could see a shift in the dynamics of the cybersecurity industry,” she comments. “This shift, however, requires the field to adapt its hiring practices to reflect the evolving nature of the work.

“The evolving cybersecurity landscape demands a broader set of skills, adding AI knowledge and deep data analysis skills to existing expectations, which include critical reasoning and detective-like intuition. These skills are essential and should play a crucial role in attracting more women to the cyber workforce.”

She adds: “Looking back at the involvement of women in the early days of computing, be that Ada Lovelace recognising the potential of machines beyond calculation, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, or the mathematicians behind the space race, these all highlight the importance of nurturing and sustaining women’s interest in these data-focused areas. 

“Where cyber-related fields require analytical thought, by ensuring teams at least have diverse perspectives, organisations are in the best position to foster innovation.”

******

Make sure you check out the latest edition of Cyber Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Tech & AI LIVE 2024

******

Cyber Magazine is a BizClik brand