With each pass­ing day, threat actors are tar­get­ing cor­po­rate IT infra­struc­tures with increas­ing sophis­ti­ca­tion and fre­quen­cy. Cor­po­rate cyber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols have nev­er been more impor­tant to the mod­ern enter­prise. In fact, IBM esti­mates that the glob­al aver­age cost of a data breach was $4.45 mil­lion in 2023, a 15% increase over three years. 

As orga­ni­za­tions hire cyber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als to pro­tect IT invest­ments and data from such cost­ly and com­plex threats, it’s impor­tant for orga­ni­za­tions to build cyber­se­cu­ri­ty teams with diverse expe­ri­ences, out­looks, and skills. 

Dur­ing a recent ASUG Women Con­nect web­cast event focused on cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, the pan­el of female cyber­se­cu­ri­ty experts not only cov­ered some of the biggest threats they see at work but also offered tools and tips for oth­er women in tech to suc­cess­ful­ly build careers in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. Here are some insights from that dis­cus­sion; you can watch the full pan­el here.

Cur­rent Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Threats 

Which cyber­se­cu­ri­ty vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties should more indi­vid­u­als under­stand in the fast-evolv­ing world of mod­ern technology? 

Sushi­la Nair, Vice Pres­i­dent, Head of Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices, North Amer­i­ca at Capgem­i­ni, kicked off the con­ver­sa­tion by dis­cussing AI and its impact on the threat land­scape. ​“There is a ben­e­fit to AI,” she said. ​“But the oth­er side is using it as well.” 

Nair not­ed that AI pro­grams, such as ​“FraudG­PT,” can be lever­aged by threat actors to write indus­try-spe­cif­ic phish­ing emails. To com­bat increas­es in AI-orches­trat­ed phish­ing attacks, Nair encour­aged atten­dees to increase the tech­ni­cal skills of their work­forces and work to main­tain orga­ni­za­tion-wide aware­ness of such emerg­ing threats.

Kim Cav­a­liero-Keller, Senior Con­sul­tant, IT Orga­ni­za­tion­al Change Man­age­ment at Mol­son Coors Bev­er­age Com­pa­ny, added that, ​“AI is the one part of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty that is going to be the most chal­leng­ing.” Accord­ing to Cav­a­liero-Keller, orga­ni­za­tions must espe­cial­ly improve their cyber­se­cu­ri­ty ​“armor” as AI pro­grams rapid­ly improve; she under­lined the press­ing real­i­ty that cyber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als still do not ful­ly under­stand the impact the tech­nol­o­gy will have, as it is learn­ing and chang­ing constantly. 

But AI was not the only threat iden­ti­fied by the pan­elists. Both Cav­a­liero-Keller and Amy Dunn, Secu­ri­ty Spe­cial­ist at Mol­son Coors Bev­er­age Com­pa­ny, dis­cussed the con­stant threat posed by phish­ing and the need for orga­ni­za­tions to imple­ment con­stant train­ing and aware­ness checks across their operations.

Skills for Success 

The pan­el was also asked what skills women should devel­op to fuel a suc­cess­ful career in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. Nair and Cav­a­liero-Keller encour­aged atten­dees to fol­low their pas­sions and let their inter­ests dri­ve their career paths, includ­ing through cybersecurity. 

“My father always said, ​‘You are real­ly good at what you enjoy,’” Nair reflect­ed, telling atten­dees to fig­ure out what their pas­sions are, then to lever­age indus­try best prac­tices such as the Nation­al Insti­tute of Stan­dards and Tech­nol­o­gy (NIST) cyber­se­cu­ri­ty frame­work, intend­ed for orga­ni­za­tions to help deter­mine and address high­est-pri­or­i­ty risk, to improve their under­stand­ing of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty risk man­age­ment. With that knowl­edge, emerg­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als will be bet­ter equipped to con­nect their pas­sions to their skillsets.

Anoth­er impor­tant skill both Cav­a­liero-Keller and Nair touched on involved remain­ing open to con­tin­u­al learn­ing and devel­op­ment. ​“You always have to make your­self bet­ter,” Cav­a­liero-Keller said, empha­siz­ing that a will­ing­ness to improve and pur­sue fur­ther edu­ca­tion will help atten­dees advance in any career, not just in cybersecurity. 

Chal­lenges for Women in Cybersecurity 

It is no secret that IT and engi­neer­ing are male-dom­i­nat­ed fields. That is steadi­ly chang­ing, but women still must con­tend with spe­cif­ic obsta­cles to career suc­cess in the world of cybersecurity. 

“I’ve cer­tain­ly faced a lot of chal­lenges as a woman in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty,” Nair said. ​“But I do think it’s get­ting a lot bet­ter.” Nair men­tioned how, when she began her career as an engi­neer, she was often told that cer­tain orga­ni­za­tions did not hire women for engi­neer­ing roles. 

“It’s extra­or­di­nary how far we’ve come” since those days, she said, empha­siz­ing that effec­tive cyber­se­cu­ri­ty teams require diverse mind­sets that can bring a range of insights and expe­ri­ence to the table. Enter­pris­es are tak­ing steps to diver­si­fy their cyber­se­cu­ri­ty teams and, in doing so, can bet­ter pro­tect their IT investments. 

Cav­a­liero-Keller dis­cussed how easy it can be to sud­den­ly find your­self being inter­rupt­ed, talked over, or ​“man-splained” to by male cowork­ers. The best way to com­bat such in-office hur­dles is to remain con­fi­dent in your skills and abil­i­ties, she said, and to stand your ground when­ev­er possible.

Both Cav­a­liero-Keller and Nair also empha­sized the impor­tance of net­work­ing and vol­un­teer­ing in order to meet oth­er cyber­se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als. ​“You need to find your tribe,” Nair said, also not­ing that cre­at­ing indus­try con­nec­tions are a great way to advance careers and find ways into unex­pect­ed new roles and companies. 

Want to hear the full pan­el? Reg­is­ter here to watch on-demand. 

To learn more about Women Con­nect, and its future events, please join our LinkedIn group.