Eleven percent isn\u2019t nothing \u2014 you wouldn\u2019t brush off an 11% risk of injury or cyberincident \u2014 but when it comes to representation in the workplace, being in the 11% can be daunting. And 11% is women\u2019s representation in the world of cybersecurity.<\/p>\n
Considering that cybersecurity faces an alarming shortage of talented workers, you might think the solution is simple: help get girls interested in tech. As it turns out, reality is a lot more complex. For starters, getting girls interested isn\u2019t a problem. Complex problems appeal to us at Kaspersky Lab, though, and so we continued our exploration with a daylong conference called CyberStarts.<\/p>\n
As our first keynote<\/a> speaker, Eva Galperin<\/a>, pointed out, being in the 11% means that in a room of 10 developers, she\u2019s the only woman. In a smaller meeting, it\u2019s a fair bet no women are there.<\/p>\n The downsides affect the women in question in some obvious ways, and they are also to the detriment of the industry; and the world it serves.<\/p>\n As in cybersecurity, identifying a problem is followed by poking at potential solutions to figure out what has and hasn\u2019t worked in the past, what\u2019s working now, and what else to try next.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a terrible and sad fact that every woman on the planet has war stories covering the gamut from having ideas and family needs discounted at work to sexual assault in the workplace or at industry conferences. We are still in an era in which those stories must be spoken out loud, for reasons every bit as broad as the stories themselves. To begin with, when the men in the boardroom think they\u2019ve helped by making a directive to consider woman applicants equally, actual hiring processes may not bear that out, and women may surprise them by pointing out the continuing need for inclusive codes of conduct and other policies. More on that in the next section.<\/p>\n From the morning keynote \u2014 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s director of cybersecurity, Eva Galperin \u2014 the conference segued into a panel discussion featuring Kasha Gauthier, from the Advanced Cyber Security Center, Sara Munzinger of Carbon Black and Lesbians Who Tech, and Pam Stenson, from Alta Associates and the Executive Women\u2019s Forum. Both sessions circled around themes of girls and women becoming interested in tech, overcoming discouragement to enter the field, and persevering.<\/p>\n To sum up the apparently universal problems:<\/p>\n Is it actually a problem that the industry is full of men? If girls were more interested in cybertech, or better suited to it, they\u2019d be in cybertech, wouldn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n Well, no. Certainly not according to the CyberStarts morning crew, who pointed out that women tend to be well-suited to high-tech jobs (our research agrees<\/a>). On the panel, Munzinger and Stenson briefly described how cybertech\u2019s rich field of opportunity attracted them from other and adjacent fields. And Gauthier added some of the ways in which she sees women as naturally suited to the field: \u201cWomen are natural problem-solvers; we\u2019re natural collaborators; we\u2019re natural question-askers and envelope-pushers in many ways\u2026.Infosec really needs those skills.\u201d<\/p>\n The broad challenge, as they see it, is less that of attracting women to the field (i.e., having a pipeline) and more that of retaining them (i.e., fixing the leaky pipeline).<\/p>\n And why should the industry care? That\u2019s an easy one \u2013 the more voices, the better the results.<\/strong><\/b> A bunch of people with similar experiences, outlooks, and incomes tend to create projects and products that address their own needs, not necessarily the needs of everyone \u2014 and each person\u2019s experiences and ideas reinforce those of the others, creating an echo chamber.<\/p>\n A group of men might not anticipate the needs of many mothers to feed their families at the end of the workday, for example, or why products for women\u2019s health would have any appeal. A group of middle-class folks might unthinkingly locate an office in a spot not served by public transportation or some well-meaning men, thinking hard, might create a pen for women<\/a> and pat themselves on the back. Ask the inventors of various connected technologies about their motivations and expectations, and almost to a man, they didn\u2019t realize their creations might be used to do harm. Sit with that last one for a second.<\/p>\n Although it can be gratifying to share information and gripes about what\u2019s not yet right in our industry, at some point we are compelled to look toward the future \u2014 you know, the part where we save the world.<\/p>\nGood morning: The first step is admitting you have a problem<\/h2>\n
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How diversity benefits us all<\/h3>\n
Good afternoon: Moving the industry forward<\/h3>\n