Brianna Barger

Assignment 2

Nir Kshetri

April 24, 2024

“Current Stage of Women Workforce in Cybersecurity: Is the World at Risk?”

Cybersecurity is a very important field to know about and study. The ability to prevent

cyberattacks against infrastructure depends on the skills and knowledge that a human is to have.

While Cybersecurity jobs keep inclining, the current rate of women versus men being able to fill

this job is degrading. The societal view is that men are more capable of working with technology

and this field of cybersecurity pertains more to men than women. Although statistics show that

there is a higher percentage of men who focus their studies on science than women, it doesn’t

mean that women are not capable of fulfilling the role of a cybersecurity job.

While the proportion of women who work in cybersecurity is very low, it doesn’t dictate

that men are better than women in this field of study. Women are highly underrated in this field

just because a lot of women focus on medical, psychological, and managing fields of study. A lot

of women like to nurse and care for others because they like to feel good about using their hands

to help others. The current stage of the women workforce in Cybersecurity worldwide according

to Osborne, “Women held 25 percent of cybersecurity jobs globally in 2022, up from 20 percent

in 2019 and around 10 percent in 2013. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that women will

represent 30 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce by 2025, increasing to 35 percent by

2031.” (Charlie Osborne, 2023). Outside of the U.S., it is even worse with low numbers as far as

5%. In higher positions of management, there is only approximately 1% which are women.
 Some Key barriers of female applicants to work in the field of cybersecurity is because of

stereotypical approaches, lack of role models because men are biased for other men when it

comes to helping or even guiding fellow employees, and perceived barriers to entry such as lack

the expertise to complete a project or protect a system. A lot of women are self-conscious when

it comes to STEM studies. Women like to feel needed and this job title doesn’t allow them to

feel this way, all because of “societal norms”. It doesn’t help that women are less interested than

men in the field of cybersecurity and IT work as well. This field is also downplayed in the sense

that it requires technical skills that a lot of women don’t think they have. They may not be drawn

to tech-savvy inventions, or feel as though they wouldn’t think through the tech world how they

need to. Another barrier is according the Nir Kshetri’s research it showed that a heavy

percentage of women applicants have no clue what the IT fields like cybersecurity and other jobs

like this is all about and what they inquire. Even though the IT world has the requirement to be

very thorough at your job, this indication of women not knowing about IT fields goes to show

how unthorough they are when it comes to sharing what this career requires and provides.

Women like to learn all about a field and feel comfortable when moving into a job change, career

choice, and title. Lack of clarity is a barrier that is overlooked when trying to lure women into

the field. Instead of being very detailed with ads, college listings and even broadcasting events

business, schools etc. glaze over the fact that people need to know and like to research what they

could be interested in. Also, gender bias is another part of the barriers because a lot of

cybersecurity job application ads don't include gender-neutral language.

Next, we will move onto some of the benefits of including more women in the

cybersecurity field. Women love detail and with a lot of women pay attention and catch things

men don't. Take for instance, a woman who has errors in her work, she will notice it and will
have her self-conscious side force her to fix it because she would rather work harder then be

humiliated. They bring in diverse thinking patterns and even implement strategic ways to help

the business, more than a man would think about. Women think through every detail and

research and want to know facts while men do the bare minimum, read something and it is “good

enough”. But good isn’t the same for women as it is for men. This tends to be said because

women have business degrees, social science, and nursing. These jobs require applicants to pay

attention to detail and be thorough in every part of their job. So, this is a big benefit of having

women in the cybersecurity field. Another benefit is there are studies that women do better with

online training which cuts costs for companies. It is also super flexible and much needed.

Women are known for multitasking which allows them to focus on training along with their

other work. They can save the company money, think through details all while working.

Motivation is a huge and much-needed factor when it comes to cybersecurity and working a job

that requires continuous work.

In essence to detail, women also can pick partners out of a crowd by how they are

beneficial to the public, follow the same guidelines and qualifications. They examine their skill

sets and ensure they can do their own security test. (Nir Kshetri, 2023). Women just create a

more diverse aspect when it comes to cybersecurity. They have an easier time creating

relationships with others. This allows people in the field to build relationships with one another

and help branch out information. Emotional intelligence can enable valuable information across

the database to get the job completed. There are several scenarios where women have used the

creation of relationships to get the job done. One scenario specifically is when engineers were

away and the director created a good relationship with them that, “I’d cultivated such a positive

relationship with them,” she said. “They said sure.” (Meredith Bauer, 2019). Creating this
relationship and being emotionally attached does have its pros because they were across the

country and still helped her with the issue. With this, women enhance team dynamics. How

many times have you seen women not be teamed up with or work better with someone else?

Women feed off other women and when 2 work together it is better than one. In cybersecurity

jobs, you must have a team mindset because so many people are controlling different units of the

workplace to make cybersecurity work for all networks. They also foster innovation because of

making this career diverse. Women put many different ideas together to create something

wonderful. Receiving feedback and working to better work with others will allow more

opportunities to innovate something great. It also helps the outlook on how women are hard

workers and even consists of an inventing mindset. Another attribute to including more women

in the cybersecurity field is that it draws more women to be intrigued with learning about this

field of study. It allows younger generations to see the importance of STEM studies and strive to

be the women who created history. Lastly, another attractive benefit is women realize when other

women are being persuaded or targeted towards women. If a woman senses something is wrong,

9/10 they are almost always right. If there is a company that can be saved all because women

sense when other women are being persuaded or even played can be beneficial when it comes to

multimillion-dollar firms or businesses.

My recommendations for the private sector and government to increase the participation

of women in the cybersecurity field would be to first, foster a culture of respect. Show women

that they belong to the field by simply hiring more women for cybersecurity jobs. Have

billboards and/ or advertisements with women on the face of the company to lure them in.

Ensure the work environment works together and enables women to be at the same level as men
in the workplace. Creating a less bias or gender-based work environment will help with this

issue.

The next recommendation I would make is secondly I would financially find a way for

small businesses to provide scholarships for younger generations to learn about cybersecurity

and have training for it. Reach out to other businesses or outside sources such as governments to

help pave the way for students to become the next best cybersecurity specialist. Provide a way

for them to learn and be able to advance in cybersecurity. Have events where students at

elementary schools and even high schools can enjoy and learn about what cybersecurity is all

about.

Building more pathways to a career in cybersecurity. Ensure students have available

options to take classes while training for cybersecurity jobs. Funding is the most important

aspect when it comes to pushing cybersecurity. Consistently updating your skillsets for

cybersecurity and taking extra training to ensure there are more pathways for a career in

cybersecurity.

Also, implementing mentorship programs within businesses will provide better ways for

employees to get the training they need. You pair experienced individuals with newcomers. It

also allows leaders to have a purpose solely for new employees. It also allows regular employees

to reintroduce their standards and keeps them up to date on the company knowledge they don't

use on a daily. Also, if you designate certain people in the business to devote their time to others

it can create a much better team atmosphere.

Another recommendation that goes along with gender equality is pay equality. Make pay

the same based on each unit of the cybersecurity job site. Don't base pay off the gender, age, or

even skillset. This plays into the role of discrimination. Just because a woman works in the role
that many people in the world believe men should be in, doesn’t give the liberty to not

implement pay to be the same across the board. Equality, especially in payment is a huge

recommendation I see that needs to change in not only cybersecurity but other jobs as well.

Improve career development is a great way to help increase participation of women in

cybersecurity career. Place graduates into entry level roles at firms to learn cybersecurity jobs

and provide hands-on professional development experience through apprenticeships. This will

enhance the number of women interested in cybersecurity and will help when it comes to the

point of students that graduate who need “work experience”. If you create a free and desirable

environment, then a lot of women and people will be drawn to it.

Lastly, I would recommend that cybersecurity jobs should broaden their new employee

skill set lists to accommodate more applicants. Instead of pushing employees to have experience

before the job would help accommodate a lot of applicants because according to a lot of

cybersecurity jobs, they require you to have experience but how can you have experience if you

just got out of college? Also, internal hiring is a big aspect of it, you can promote the workers

who have learned everything about the business and how the culture is to run bigger and better

opportunities. Use internal workers to advance in the business, then they can teach generations to

do the same. It enables cybersecurity jobs to be unending.

In conclusion to this, we see that it is vital to include women in the field of cybersecurity

for many reasons. Confidentiality, diversity, business payoffs, and even positively enable the

business with a better outcome of various innovative suggestions. Diversity is the most

prominent aspect that stands out when it comes to women in the cybersecurity field. Without

diversity, there can’t be any cross-team solutions and utilizing multiple innovative ideas to create

one fantastic approach. It positively impacts the business as well because many women work
great in a team setting and can toss around various ideas to create something great in the end or

even figure out a problem. In the end we see that having women in Cybersecurity will pay off

and is a great way to better the environment and workplaces. The world will see that diversity is

good and jobs that are viewed as one gender role can and will gradually change.

Works Cited

Osborne, Charlie. “Women to Hold 30 Percent of Cybersecurity Jobs Globally by 2025.”

Cybercrime Magazine. September 27, 2023. Retrieved from,

https://cybersecurityventures.com/women-in-cybersecurity-report-2023/.
Kshetri, Nir. “The Lack of Women in Cybersecurity Leaves the online World at Greater Risks.”

The Conversation. May 15, 2020. Retrieved from, https://theconversation.com/the-lack-

of-women-in-cybersecurity-leaves-the-online-world-at-greater-risk-136654.