3 November 2020
The amount of digital information is growing daily and is becoming increasingly vulnerable and difficult to manage. Consequently, new security challenges are arising and with the new types of crimes, which States are not always prepared to tackle. New technologies have also created new tools that facilitate attacks and allow criminals to rapidly adapt to change. Such crimes and criminals are to be considered cyber dependent since they would not exist in the absence of data and internet networks.
Cyberspace is also known as the fifth domain of warfare and nowadays it became critical to land, sea, air and space military operations. The availability of (and access to) cyberspace is crucially important even for the success of practical military operations. The Cyber Security Strategy for the European Union presented in February 2013 highlighted that “Cybersecurity efforts in the EU also involve the cyber defence dimension”. In 2014, the European Council adopted a “Cyber Defence Policy Framework “where five priorities were put forward; one of them was to provide improved training, education and exercises opportunities in the cyber domain.
Despite its importance and the increasing availability of employment in this field, in 2018 women only accounted for 24% of the total positions in cybersecurity. They are even less well represented in the upper echelons of security leadership even if 52% of women working in the field have advanced degrees in cybersecurity, compared to 44% of men. Organisations very seldom recruit women to work in cybersecurity and, according to the IT security company Tessian, half of the organizations admit that they are not doing enough to recruit women into cybersecurity roles.
Women play a fundamental role in the resolution of crime and security issues concerning consumers, organizations and nations, thanks to their unique viewpoints and perspectives that tend to differ from men’s. According to some statistics, the percentage of women working in cybersecurity is growing thanks to the new policies that different states are implementing in order to increase the number of women in this field. One of the first examples is Israel, which has already made some efforts to include women in cybersecurity: in fact, starting from 2018, about 2000 girls participated in the CyberGirlz Club and the CyberGirlz Community.
The European Union has become increasingly active regarding new technologies and cybersecurity. During the 2014-2020 period, the Commission has been co-funding research and innovation in different areas of cybersecurity as part of Horizon 2020. In 2016, following the signature of a contractual public-private partnership (cPPP) with the European Commission, the European Cybersecurity Organisation (ECSO) was created.
Recently, with the goal of helping to fill the gender gap between cybersecurity professionals in Europe and highlighting the role of women in the cybersecurity community, the European Cybersecurity Organisation has created the Women4Cyber Foundation. Its aim is to encourage women professionals to come forward, become more active and more visible in the field as well as to promote the Women4Cyber initiatives. An important aspect is the launch of the Women4Cyber Registry of Experts, which is the result of a common collaboration between Women4Cyber and the European Commission. In general, the main activities of Women4Cyber are divided into six workstreams, which aim at developing relevant personal skills while enhancing and increasing the role of women in cybersecurity.
Written by Nariné IGITYAN, Communication and Public Relations Team at Finabel – European Army Interoperability Centre
Sources
European Defence Agency, Cyber Defence, Aug 7, 2020. https://www.eda.europa.eu/what-we-do/activities/activities-search/cyber-defence
Shaping Europe’s digital future, “Cybersecurity”, 25 August 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cyber-security#Cyber%20community
Kayla Matthews, “Women in Cybersecurity”, in Cybernews, 6 October 2020, https://cybernews.com/editorial/women-in-cybersecurity/
Professor Ben Awvine, Head of Security Research, BT, “The future of AI and Cybersecurity”, 18 October 2019, https://www.cbronline.com/opinion/the-future-of-ai-and-cybersecurity
Women 4Cyber, “Roadmap of Actions” , https://women4cyber.eu/roadmap-of-actions
