In male-dominated spaces like cybersecurity, women are more likely to be interrupted than men. In fact, men are three times more likely to interrupt women as they are to interrupt other men. But cybersecurity needs the voices and contributions of women to succeed; the cybersecurity skills gap widened by nearly 75% over the past year, and Gartner forecasts that by 2025, a lack of talent will be responsible for more than half of all significant cyberattacks.
Creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce will be critical to tightening the skills gap and shifting the power away from threat actors. However, according to a global Boston Consulting Group survey of 2,000 female STEM students, several obstacles still stand in the way of women succeeding in technical roles, including imposter syndrome and a low sense of belonging.