Today the percentage of women who have jobs in the field of cyber security in Cyprus is only 15%, while the corresponding percentage worldwide reached 25% in 2022. This was reported at a conference on the topic “Women in Cybersecurity”, which took place on Wednesday in Nicosia. The conference was held under the auspices of the Office of the Commissioner of Communications, the Digital Security Authority, the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, and the Office of the Commissioner for Gender Equality.

In his address, George Michaelides, Commissioner of Communications, said that the field of cyber security remains a largely male-dominated profession. As he said, according to the Women in Cyber Security 2022 Report, women held only 25% of cyber security jobs worldwide in 2022, adding that the figure was 20% in 2019 and around 10% in 2013. “It is encouraging that there is an increasing trend”, he stressed, while noting that in Cyprus women hold only 15% of jobs in the field of cyber security.

Michaelides said that the Office of the Commissioner of Communications (including the Digital Security Authority and OCECPR) employs 102 people, of which 40 are women. Forty people work at the Digital Security Authority, of whom only 5 are women, he noted. “During the announcement for the 18 permanent Digital Security Engineer positions, of the 222 applications submitted, only 28 came from women, a percentage of 12.6%. Of the 18 positions, 3 were occupied by women, a percentage of 16.6%”, he added.

In her address, Josie Christodoulou, Commissioner for Gender Equality, said that statistics, literature and experience show that women are not equally represented in public life, even though they make up 50% of the population. As she said, Eurostat ranks Cyprus 3rd out of 27 EU member states in higher education by gender (67% women and 51% men), but then women “disappear” from the workforce or end up working part-time. She also noted that many women remain in part-time work – especially after the birth of a child – in their attempt to reconcile family and professional life, resulting in low income and lack of professional advancement.

As Christodoulou said, the European Institute for Gender Equality reports that the participation of women in STEAM professions is only 4%, while that of men is 27%. “EU figures and statistics show that jobs in STEAM and technology-related occupations will grow by 8%,” she added. The most worrying aspect, as she said, is that these professions are much more attractive to boys than girls because of stereotypes and traditional anachronistic notions that prevent girls from choosing these professions. As a result, she pointed out, the development of technology disproportionately benefits men compared to women.

On her part, Georgia Bafoutsou, Cyber Security Officer at the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), spoke about diversity and equality in cyberspace. As she said, of the 129 master’s programmes in cybersecurity that existed in Europe in 2022, 21% of graduates are women. The European Cyber Security Challenge (ECSC) had 16% female participation in 2021, rising to 38% in 2022. The International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) European team for 2022 initially had 27% female participation, with finally amounting to 20%, she added.