UAE: Women in cybersecurity battle culture, gaps in access, work bias
Irene Corpuz, founding partner of Women in Cybersecurity Middle East (WiCSME), said women's participation is increasing in government entities.
'Globally, women in the cybersecurity field have now doubled to 25 per cent from around 12 per cent in 2012. But remember, there are those women who experienced burnout and left the organisation. In Dubai, I work with government entities and I can see a lot of women in this field. In one of the Dubai government entities where I work, there are more women on my team than men because they have an Emiratisation programme.
"Secondly, they even have KPIs for women in cybersecurity and they are encouraging empowerment for women. You can see how many women ministers ministers are there in the UAE, so it's coming from the leadership,' she said on the sidelines of the conference.
She added that WiCSME supports women and young students in capacity building, mentorship, training, internship and partnership.
Founded by seven partners from Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the rest from the UAE. The group now has almost 3,000 members, ranging from students to housewives to accountants, who are interested in transitioning to cybersecurity.
The group's latest programme, Cybersheet, will empower around 1,500 women for three years in the region through collaboration with partners.
Break the wheel
While sharing her personal experiences and suggestions, Leen Alhalabi, associate principal cybersecurity consultant at Dragos, said that it is very challenging for women to work in rural areas and offshore platforms because the facilities are not women-friendly.
'We need to break the wheel. Unless that wheel is broken, we can only then start to see more women entering this field. We call out the major players within the ICS industry; please work with us to standardise the site environments, not only in terms of safety and efficiency but also to make them more women-friendly and welcoming, to make us inclusive,' she added.
She called for empowering more women to enter this field through meetings, leading discussions, and even engagement.
'I would like to ask companies and organisations to provide more guidance for female graduates.'
Badreya AlMehairi, senior assistant vice president of senior data privacy at Mashreq Bank, pointed out that a lack of information and cultural issues were some of the biggest initial challenges she faced when trying to fulfil her dream of studying and working in the IT field.
However, she said that after the AI entered her life, it became much easier to find information and made it faster to read and understand.
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