Cybersecurity Divas, an organization which showcases the Most Influential Women in Cybersecurity, has released its latest list of women who have made the greatest impact on the cybersecurity industry. See the list here: www.cybersecuritydivas.com.
Women make up less than 15% of the cybersecurity workforce. With such a male dominated industry, it has traditionally been difficult for women to break into it. Cybersecurity Divas was formed to promote the accomplishments of women in cybersecurity who have had the tenacity and drive to push through the ‘glass ceiling’. In fact, the DIVAS in Cybersecurity Divas stands for “Driven women who are Inspirational and Visionary that take Action in Security.”
The selection criteria for being included in the most influential women in cybersecurity list includes the requirement of mentoring and leading an operational security team for at least 5 years. They also need to be contributing back to the industry by participating in conferences, speaking engagements, association participation, publishing articles or papers and generally have a well-respected reputation within the industry.
The Cybersecurity Divas’ list currently contains 250 of the most accomplished women across the security domain. In a recent survey of these women, 23% attributed their constant persistence as a reason for their success. Another 19% gave credit to excellent mentors, both male and female. 17% said it was having the self-confidence to push through even when others didn’t believe in them and 14% said building a strong network really played a part in their success. Interestingly, only 8% said that keeping up with their technical skills was the most important. Likely, these results are reflective of how most of these women in leadership positions such as Chief Information Security Officers (CISO’s) and Directors of Security positions were now more focused on team management and building both executive and employee relationships, than on keeping up with hands-on technical skills.
Cybersecurity Divas diversity research has shown that the most effective way to create highly-effective diverse security teams is to start at the top by hiring a highly qualified diversity leader. Cybersecurity Divas’ showcase is a way to promote the accomplishments of these women leaders to help the industry realize how valuable hiring women leaders can be in this under represented field.
Additional resources can be found here: https://www.cybersecuritydivas.com/diversity-in-cybersecurity/
For more information about Cybersecurity Divas, go to the: https://www.cybersecuritydivas.com/ or email [email protected]