Breaking the Black Mirror and Other Lessons From Day of Shecurity

While the numbers are improving, the vast underrepresentation and underpromotion of women in technology roles is hampering the industry's effectiveness. Many organizations are joining a growing effort for more diversity and inclusion: Day of Shecurity. I recently spoke at the October virtual event and was inspired by the group of women in attendance — all eager to share their knowledge on how to break the glass ceiling (or in this case, "black mirror") of the information security arena, negotiate your worth, and overcome fears of moving into management.

Once reserved for tech blogs and DEF CON, discussions around securing our personal and professional devices have become more mainstream. Our shift to a largely at-home workforce with fewer safeguards on access to corporate infrastructure and assets gave attackers a multitude of new attack vectors. We also started relying on the Internet for many of the activities we used to perform in person: online banking, online shopping, online learning, online socializing, online everything.

There are, however, far too few trained cybersecurity professionals available to meet the demand set by businesses. Projections for workforce shortages in cybersecurity have vastly underestimated the requirements of an ever-growing and evolving threat to the technology we have grown dependent on. In my last article, I explored how eager minds can find their niche in cybersecurity, but another passion of mine is empowering women to join the cyber workforce.

I'm often asked how to gain footing in a new role in this industry, and my answer always boils down to these tips:

Despite a growing interest in cybersecurity (due in large part to initiatives dedicated to equalizing the ratio of men and women in the industry), women still only represent 25% of the industry workforce, according to research from (ISC)². This is concerning for several reasons, one of the most important being that diversity brings more varied solutions to major challenges in cybersecurity — just as it has in every other industry. Our attackers are constantly finding new, creative ways to exploit users; we need to be able to catch up.