Two of the UK’s main feminine cyber practitioners – Secureworks menace intelligence data supervisor Rebecca Taylor and CybAid founder and Hewitt Partnerships managing director Amelia Hewitt – are to launch a e book for ladies beginning and navigating careers within the cyber safety sector.
The duo describe their co-authored e book, Securely Yours, as a sensible, agony aunt-style information, drawing on each Taylor and Hewitt’s lived expertise within the nonetheless male-dominated safety trade.
They purpose to deal with a spread of subjects, together with energetic allyship, the ever-present spectre of burnout, and constructing an expert model. Many of those subjects are drawn from questions posed by others whom the ladies have mentored throughout their careers. “No matter is simply too taboo,” they mentioned.
Though Securely Yours displays on the experiences of and questions raised by ladies particularly, the authors hope its sensible recommendation will probably be useful to anyone trying to advance their safety careers, from no matter background, in addition to serving as a useful resource for these in positions of privilege to higher assist inclusion in safety.
“It’s been an immense privilege to share not solely our experiences and the recommendation we’ve gained throughout our careers, however the insights of a spread of unbelievable people who’ve every had their very own journeys inside cyber, to create a useful resource we hope has one thing for each reader,” mentioned Hewitt.
“I’m lucky to have had an incredible cyber safety profession, and I would like others to have the identical,” added Taylor.
“I really feel an accountability inside me to raise, assist and mentor underrepresented teams to personal their platforms, voices and alternatives. This e book is a manifestation of that. I actually hope it makes a distinction and helps these desirous to thrive in cyber know that they’ll do it, that we’ve their again and that they’re not alone on their journey,” she mentioned.
Taylor started her profession at Secureworks – now a part of Sophos – in an administrative position, earlier than making the most of a forward-thinking inner tradition on the enterprise to develop her profession and safety experience.
In a 2024 interview with Laptop Weekly, she mentioned: “I began doing numerous finding out and studying within the background, and thru mentorship and publicity across the enterprise, actually centered on progressing my profession.”
Taylor now works on a number of variety initiatives – not simply gender – each inside and outdoors the enterprise. Through the years, she has supported many different ladies within the trade with mentoring and different steering.
Group spirit
As pushback towards official variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) initiatives turns into stronger, neighborhood assist networks – which are sometimes underpinned by mentorships – have gotten notably precious for underrepresented teams in safety and the broader expertise trade.
Nonetheless, current analysis performed by US-based non-profit Lady in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) discovered that 57% of girls within the sector really feel excluded from profession and progress alternatives, and 56% don’t really feel they’re revered.
That is resulting in a state of affairs the place virtually 40% really feel they’re unable to be their genuine selves within the office, and given safety suffers from excessive charges of workforce attrition and burnout, Hewitt and Taylor mentioned it’s crucial that extra is finished to assist folks really feel supported and revered in any respect levels of their careers.
Securely Yours will probably be accessible from 1 Might 2025 on Amazon, and its launch will probably be accompanied by a podcast collection to broaden on the conversations began within the e book and provide further assist.