SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The global cybersecurity workforce remains stagnant at just 11 percent, according to the 2017 Women in Cybersecurity Report[PDF], co-authored by The Executive Women's Forum on Information Security, Risk Management and Privacy (EWF) and the Center for Cyber Safety and Education, which partnered with (ISC)2. The report is based on survey responses from over 19,000 information security professionals in 170 countries.
Report co-author and EWF founder Joyce Brocaglia says the most important finding of the report is that "it isn't just one thing" causing the persistent shortage of women in information security, but rather a "confluence of events."
The findings, says Brocaglia, show that women are underrepresented, are paid less than their male colleagues, feel undervalued, and feel discriminated against. "That's what's leading to this stagnation."
The shortage is severe in North America, with only 14 percent of the infosec workforce composed of women, but even more striking elsewhere; women only claim 7 percent of the workforce in Europe, 8 percent in Asia, and 5 percent in the Middle East, according to the report.
"Common sense should tell you we should be doing more about this," says co-author and EWF executive director Lynn Terwoerds, noting that in order to solve the cybersecurity skills shortage, the industry must do a better engaging the female population.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:23PM (1 child)
You described most of my first job :D Though I'd go nuts if I weren't allowed IRC, that much is true, and I do end up doing a fair amount of customer-facing stuff.
But nothing's nicer than sitting or standing at an SSH prompt, logged into someone's XenServer across the nation that I personally built, set up, and shipped to them, adding VMs and messing with storage repos and tweaking things, good music coming through the headphones, irssi in a spare terminal...ahh, bliss 3 It's like the intellectual equivalent of a runner's high, everything whizzing along smooth and cool in your mind...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Friday March 24 2017, @02:17PM
I was speaking in generalities, of course. There will always be women who enjoy the kind of work you describe, and that's great.
A woman where I work and I have been friends for several years now. She's probably been coding even longer than I have. She works as a DBA and you will always find her, sitting quietly at her desk, headphones on, tapping away on her keyboard. She loves it. But like many of her male colleagues she does not have much of a social life, and in fact has never been married; never had children; considers romantic liasons to be more trouble than they're worth. And she would be the first to admit that she is not like most women, and to be honest, I get the feeling she likes that distinction.