Female gender gap in information security sector must be tackled
From: TheInformationDaily.com
By: Julie Peeler, Director of the (ISC)² Foundation
Today, a huge gender gap exists in the information security profession with women constituting only 11 per cent of the global information security workforce.
The profession is experiencing double-digit annual increases of personnel. Yet women, who have the academic background and the diverse perspective to accelerate real change in the information security industry, are being ignored.
These are the findings of a new report Agents of Change: Women in the Information Security Profession, authored by Frost & Sullivan and released by (ISC)2 Foundation in partnership with Symantec.
So why bother making a concerted effort to bring more women into the industry?
There are economic reasons. The industry has long been gnashing its teeth over the dearth of qualified information security professionals.
Staff shortages reign supreme globally and drawing more women into the industry would go a long way to bridge the gap in the workforce between open positions and qualified workers.
Looking at it mathematically, the industry currently employs approximately 3.2million workers. To use rounded numbers, let’s assume women represent 10 per cent of the industry or 320,000 workers.
Simply doubling the number of women employed in the industry would wipe out the gap, and become a ready source of the 300,000 workers annually that the industry needs to add through to 2017 to meet the demand for qualified professions.
Women presently in the industry possess the background and value the skills necessary to succeed in the information security environment.
The above mentioned study shows that the majority of women working in the industry, like their male counterparts, come from an IT or engineering background. Interestingly, 91 per cent of women leaders hold a bachelor’s, master’s or a doctoral degree compared to 89 per cent of men leaders.
Evidence shows that information security analysis is the most ‘in-demand’ skill set in the industry worldwide today. Women’s background makes them uniquely qualified to move into such a position.
Already, more women than men are currently working in security analysis positions (38 per cent of women versus 27 per cent of men claim this job title).
In addition, more women than men have an education in business management, social sciences, law and the like, which may perhaps be why they bring a well-balanced and rounded approach to the table.
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