Friday 9 October 2015

Closing cybersecurity’s race gap

Uncle Sam faces a longstanding, cybersecurity workforce shortage. Minorities are underrepresented in the field.

Can fixing one problem help solve the other?

In an afternoon-long spate of speeches and panels on Capitol Hill Oct. 7, experts of both genders and many races, from the private sector and government alike, grappled with those issues.

A measurable gap

“[T]his is the most significant meeting, I believe, on the Hill today,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), whose office, along with the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology and the nascent International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP), helped bring the event to life.

Women, African-Americans and Latinos are dramatically underrepresented in cybersecurity compared to their share of the overall population. According to 2014 Labor Department stats, only 9.7 percent of information security analysts are African-American, and just 6.1 percent are Latino, while the broader workforce is 11.4 percent African-American and 16.1 percent Latino.

Fewer than one in five information security analysts were women, according to the data. For the full article click here 



from cyber security caucus http://ift.tt/1ZnlV2F
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment