"Closing The Cybersecurity Gender Gap Would Boost The US Economy by $30B"

In the cybersecurity field, a significant gender gap exists. Even though there are 4 million job vacancies in the US and UK, it is hard to get more women interested in the cybersecurity field.   Women occupy less than a quarter of cybersecurity roles.  In a new survey, researchers found that 42 percent of respondents think the cybersecurity field is uncool and unexciting.  Half of the women surveyed believe that representations of the industry in media need to change in favor of encouraging more women to explore cybersecurity professions.  Since the cybersecurity field is considered uncool and unexciting, respondents between the ages of 25 and 34 said that the negative perceptions of cybersecurity are their most significant barriers to entering the cybersecurity field.  Older respondents believed that cybersecurity was a cool and exciting industry.  The image issue is a big reason more women do not enter the cybersecurity landscape at a young age, but instead enter later in their careers.  23% of the women in the survey said that a lack of role models was a challenge they faced at the start of their cyber careers, and 26% said more diverse role models would encourage more women into cybersecurity roles.  If the number of women working in the US cybersecurity field did equal that of men, this would increase the value of the cybersecurity industry by 30.4 billion dollars. 

TechRepublic reports: "Closing The Cybersecurity Gender Gap Would Boost The US Economy by $30B"