Despite demand, women comprise only 11 percent of cyber security workers

Ambareen Siraj looks out at the 75 students in her computer security class and often sees that she’s the only woman in the room.

At most, one or two women sign up each semester for her information assurance and security course at Tennessee Tech University, but often no female does.

"It bothers me," Siraj said. "In every other thing, we work side-by-side. Why not cybersecurity?"

Even in the male-dominated world of so-called STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — computer science and security careers stand out for having so few women. Females make up about half of the workforce and a quarter of STEM jobs, but they represent just 11 percent of cybersecurity workers.

By Andrew Conte

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