Communications of the ACM
Women Primed to Fill Cybersecurity Talent Gap
A push to hire and retain more women will help close the cybersecurity talent gap, experts say.
Credit: Esan Swan/Financial Times
Cybersecurity analysts are in great demand thanks to the surge in remote work due to the pandemic.
A survey by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium found 3.1 million cybersecurity analysts are needed worldwide, with 22% of companies having faced a substantial shortfall of dedicated cybersecurity staff from April to June 2020.
Cyberanalyst Jane Frankland said hiring more women can help narrow the talent gap, as they comprise just 25% of the sector's workforce.
The U.K. government and other organizations are striving to remedy women's historic underrepresentation in cybersecurity, but Emily Stapf at financial services group PricewaterhouseCoopers said retention is the key obstacle.
Stapf said hiring and retaining women could help cybersecurity's role evolve from asset protection to a corporate value-add, because "many women have a risk management mindset, think differently about balancing tasks, and are able to sort through the noise to identify a threat."
From Financial Times
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