How the f**k do I get in? One woman's struggle to break into cyber security!

hi good morning bides um it's my honor to kick off the rookie track today and I am very excited to be here there's a lot of amazing talks and workshops and lockpicks I have the opportunity to play with some lockpicks today which is exciting um because I like learning new things and I'm here today to learn and to push myself out of my comfort zone and also to share a little bit about my struggle to break into the industry or I switch my thing on let's go hang on did work before hang on let's go yeah it's pled in there we go I'll do it the old fashioned way um I'm sure some of you are here to

listen to me today to tell you how to get into cyber security but I I'll give you a little clue I don't really know um I'm stuck on the outside trying to get in I submitted this talk late one night months ago because I'd missed out on the tickets for this conference and what I really wanted to do was sit here where you guys are and listen to Somebody explain to me how to get in the title of my talk which seemed like a good idea at the time came out out of frustration because when I'm reading about this industry I see stat after stat saying that in the next 5 years we'll face a

global shortfall of about 1.8 million workers 46% of UK companies say the lack of personnel is having a significant impact on their customers and yet so many people just like me can't get in so what exactly am I doing to get in I'll give you an example the guy in charge of cyber for the for the company that I work with came to do a talk oops it's going all wrong oh dear it's one of those days um I made it clear that I would be interested in working with his team I found him on LinkedIn and Twitter I may have sent him an email as well which was probably borderline stalkerish but I heard nothing

I think one reason that he's not come back to me is that my CV does not currently have a job title that has cyber in it no experience so no further discussion and it's not just him though study that I mentioned earlier identified the main barrier to entry into this um sector is a continuing refusal to hire people without previous experience 93% of European and UK employers prioritize job candidates with previous experience so there is a shortfall and there is a demand my strength report sounds like somebody who will fit in well in this industry I'm analytical I search for reasons and causes and think about all the factors that might affect a situation I have a gift for figuring

out how people who are different can work together I'm a learner and I desire continuous Improvement I'm organized reliable Dependable efficient and consistent and on top of all those skills I read extensively across the industry I share my thoughts on LinkedIn and Twitter I'm passionate and to top it off I have my entry level security clearance as well and it's still not enough not enough to get the recruiter who my mentor very kindly said was interested to see my CV to come back to me and I ask myself what Hoops do I actually have to jump through to get in so as I sat at my desk and looked at the B science website and the

theme for this year's conference remembering that I got my in to being a digital project manager by standing up at a conference similar to this one I thought that perhaps the jump that I the hoop that I need to jump is getting out here and connecting with you who are already here when I graduated I didn't know what I wanted wanted to do but I knew that I didn't want to go into teaching like my friends I left uni and I drove all the way through France and Spain down and across to tenie and I lived there for quite some time and I did all sorts of jobs I learned about computers duplex modems vo emails I learned it all back

in the '90s I had friends all over the world through online chatting I educated my boss about attaching spreadsheet to an email I pushed things forward and I made best use of the opportunities that computer allowed and I learned I moved back to the UK actually not very far from here just down the road in fact and I still didn't know what I wanted to do I did recruitment I worked in the city there didn't seem to be much call for HTML my skills just didn't quite fit and I'm sure that some of you here today can relate to that I also learned the hard way not to trust my computer was used by everybody

in the house and some of them were not playing nice I had a knock at the front door my computer was bagged and tagged there was a prosecution under the computer misuse tag uh act not me I might had I lost my faith and I'm now cautious about taking anything for granted however there were people like you in this room who helped and supported me my hacks were developed to keep to keep the people closest to me safe now I am like just like you in this room Vigilant using the knowledge that I have accumulated to keep an eye on things that are deliberately kept from me I started a second degree in Computing because I thought I wanted to write code

I did years one and two but didn't finish as it just wasn't right for me I'm not a coder I can do it but I didn't get any fun out of it I found that I get more from supporting and enabling the people who do write the code who do do the things that you do I'm better at figuring people I met freaky clown who is actually joined us here today I didn't realize you were going to be here but thank you um uh when I was helping out at a conference back in 2012 hack to the Future he was there to inspire the kids but actually he inspired me I don't look like your archetypal H scary hacker dude

um no I don't look anything like you at all um and I am a hacker but I don't look like you guys mostly I meant as freaky described the skills that he used in his career I mentally ticked off the ones that I shared with him he opened my eyes to an industry where my skills the ones that are not on my CV could be put to good use not long after that I got my first tech job as a digital project manager and it's where I've been ever since my girls are getting older and need me less and less and I want to take the skills that I've developed over the last few years to look after them and put them to

wider use just like freaky and the people in this room at IPO Expo in April this year I listened and watched Kevin mck kitnik demo his hacking skills which was impressive not quite as impressive as Mr Coulson my mentor doing his best Fanboy impression but pretty good I listened to Jenny Radcliffe describe the skills that she uses to track people down the linking from person to person and finding out about them and I smiled to myself because that's what I do in preparation for my interviews when I know who is going to be on the panel or after I've met somebody at a networking event I open source Intel and I try and join the dots and see the

links sometimes I think that it's not just the lack of previous experience that is stopping my entry into the sector when I read about the most recent graduates from the Cyber retraining Academy in infoset magazine there was a quote from Steven Jones the MD of the Sans Institute he highlighted the lack of women on the most recent course out of the 55 students who completed the course only six were female he said it was disappointing and that he needs to work out how to get more women involved any guesses what I did next yep that's right it was natural for me and go and have a look for Steven Jones and have a little search around so

that I could let him know my thoughts as to why there were only six women I let my fingers do the searching luckily it wasn't that difficult we actually shared three uh connections on LinkedIn and as a second connection I could send him an invitation to link up no problem and so whilst I was linking in I thought that I would let him know my thoughts on why he only had six women on the course and just in case anyone say as they did on Twitter when I posted about this that's just the same issues that all the same issues for guys yep I totally agree with you yes exactly the same issues can affect both men and women but the point

that Stephen raised was the lack of women not guys and that's what I wanted to talk to him about unsurprisingly I didn't get a reply from him he didn't come back to me to explore My Views as to why they only had six women which is a shame because he he has the power to do something about this a few weeks later he did actually link up and whilst discussing this presentation my man asked me if I would like him to have a word with Steven to which I replied that I would be stupid if I said no it would be a wonderful opportunity if Steven were here today I would let him know that if he wanted

someone to help him get more women to participate in his of course I am available to advise I could discuss some of the barriers to entry that people like me encounter and perhaps together we could make sure that that next course is a bit more Equitable because diversity is good for teams and companies study after study shows that diverse companies and teams perform better when I worked out the maths Six Women out of a Class of 55 is almost bang on the global average only 11% of cyber professionals across the globe are women sadly in the UK numbers of women in the industry fell from 10% in 2015 to just 8% in March this year and the reason Studies have

shown that women can inadvertently be screened out by employers hiring criteria the industry's recruitment is stuck in a bubble if you approach the same candidate pool that you you've been approaching for the past 10 years you are going to get the same results and that is shortsighted because there are not enough people like the ones who are sat in this room who are and the industry needs to think more creatively about this I am a bit of a hacker we all are sat in this room uh but I'm not a pentester or a DBA or any of the things listed here I am a servant l someone who focuses on the growth and well-being of people who shares power

and puts the needs of others first and helps people to develop I am the one who looks after the customers I convert text speak to English or manager speak to worker speak you get the idea these are not skills that are easily put on a CV probably the same as you guys I have difficulty in finding those boxes to tick on Le 10 everyone in this room has a skill set but probably not many qualifications and I am stuck there too HR is broken I can't apply for the jobs in your organization because my CV doesn't say I do all these things so what am I supposed to do stretch my CV maybe but where but then where are my

qualifications to back up what I say so I am back to my original question how the [ __ ] do I break in really how your recruitment teams don't make it easy your recruitment practices have made this industry impossibly hard to get into this was a comment on my blog security is tough ignoring the mansplaining what this guy was actually talking about was Security in general but actually everything he says can be applied to getting a job in the industry you are making your jobs so difficult ult to get I get it I know why it's tough it's important that we get it right when I found out that a girl at my daughter's school was injured and her

mother killed at the Manchester Arena last month the only thing that I could think about was what if what if that had happened at the same time as the malware attack that had hit the NHS the 10 days before would the ambulances have got to where they needed to go would the systems be resilient enough to cope and yes I understand the need to be selective but you also need people to do the job and you will not be able to protect anybody unless you have people to do it so like he says you have so many opportunities amazing opportunities not everybody who applies will EXA have exactly what you what you need but here

is the thing if you get the people with the right skill set you will be able to train them on those specific skills that you need every person in this room today almost certainly did not have all the skills that they needed when they got the job somebody gave you the opportunity to learn as you went along your recruitment systems have to stop looking for the unicorns and think wider so that people like me can break into this industry and help you make the world a better and saf for place thank you very much [Applause]