Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that women will represent more than 20 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce by the end of 2019.
Cybersecurity Ventures joins other research firms noticing an uptick of women in cybersecurity. Forrester Research analyst Stephanie Balaouras, who co-authored a recent report with fellow analyst Claire O’Malley, told DarkReading that she believes women now represent somewhere between 15-20 percent of the industry if you include security and risk, privacy, and compliance and audit functions.
Forrester also predicts that the number of women CISOs at Fortune 500 companies will rise to 20 percent in 2019, compared with 13 percent in 2017. This is consistent with new research from Boardroom Insiders which states that 20 percent of Fortune 500 global chief information officers (CIOs) are now women — the largest percentage ever.
Add this to the fact that the recent Women in CyberSecurity conference recorded a record attendance of more than 1,300 women, and its clear that cybersecurity is attracting a growing number of female employees. As more women and girls have discovered and entered the cybersecurity arena the need to fuel that flame has been a priority for the Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) organization, who hosted the Women in CyberSecurity event March 28-30, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In its sixth year, the three-day WiCyS conference was conceived through a grant that yielded nearly 400 participants. This year’s attendance surpassed last year’s by roughly 200. When the event was open for public registration, it sold out in 45 minutes and had over 400 women on the waitlist.
Part of the appeal is not only the scholarship opportunities — WiCyS has doled out $1.8 million over six years — but also the programming at this unique conference. New this year was a career village, where cybersecurity professionals gathered to have mock interviews, presented a resume clinic, had office hours with mentors and received a professional headshot for their LinkedIn profiles. The career fair had 90 vendors ready to receive resumes while WiCyS student chapters and affiliates hosted Meetups.
Attendees were treated to five dynamic keynote speakers that included Patricia Denno, vice president for Global Intelligence Operations, Enterprise Cybersecurity at Fidelity Investments; Dr. Dawn Beyer, senior fellow at Lockheed Martin; Dr. Lorrie Faith Cranor, director and Bosch Distinguished professor in Security and Privacy Technologies of CyLab and the FORE Systems professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Wendy Nather, head of the Advisory CISO team at Duo Security (now Cisco); and Michele Schochet, director of Security at Facebook.
Next year’s event will be held at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Denver, Colo., March 12-14.
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