Microsoft's push for more women in cybersecurity

Kerem Gülen
Apr 24, 2023
Microsoft
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Tech giant Microsoft has recently made an announcement regarding its plan to allocate additional funding towards the training of new cybersecurity professionals. The initiative is aimed at providing skill-building opportunities, particularly for women, in some of the most marginalized nations across South America and Asia. This move seeks to address the severe underrepresentation of women in the cybersecurity sector and aims to promote greater gender diversity in the field.

Microsoft's Cybersecurity Skills Initiative, which now encompasses a total of 28 countries, has recently welcomed Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, and Spain to its roster. This program is geared towards providing grants and funding opportunities to non-profit organizations and educational institutions to help facilitate the delivery of more extensive cybersecurity training.

As the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals continues to surge worldwide, many underdeveloped nations are experiencing a significant shortage of qualified personnel. By prioritizing the upskilling of women in these regions, Microsoft is striving to bridge the widening skills gap and promote more gender balance in the field.

Women's role in protecting cyber fronts

According to Microsoft's own report from 2022, women comprise only 25% of the entire cybersecurity workforce. While the current announcement primarily focuses on empowering women in this field, the company is also committed to supporting “historically underrepresented populations” more broadly. By recognizing the ongoing underrepresentation of certain populations in cybersecurity, Microsoft aims to address the longstanding diversity challenges in the industry and foster a more inclusive and equitable landscape for all.

As part of its commitment to promoting greater gender diversity in cybersecurity, Microsoft has announced a series of new partnerships with organizations such as WOMCY in Latin America, Women4Cyber in Europe, and the UN's International Telecommunications Union. These partnerships will specifically support the Women in Cyber Mentorship Program, with a particular focus on underrepresented regions such as the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Image source: Pexels

Furthermore, global community WiCyS and country-level partnerships in countries like Poland and Ukraine will also be part of this movement towards achieving greater gender balance in the cybersecurity sector. Through these collaborations, Microsoft seeks to expand access to resources, training, and mentorship opportunities for women in cybersecurity and create a more inclusive environment for all.

In addition to its focus on promoting gender diversity, Microsoft's recent announcement also sheds light on the overall growth and skills shortage in the cybersecurity industry. According to reports, the sector has experienced twice the growth of other industries in the past decade. Despite this growth, several nations including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US are reportedly struggling to meet the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals.

The Cybersecurity Skills Initiative, which now spans 28 countries including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa, has already impacted the lives of over 400,000 individuals, with notable success in India. Microsoft Philanthropies Corporate VP Kate Behncken has called for greater collaboration between governments, private entities, and educational institutions to address the pressing skills gap in cybersecurity and ensure a more secure digital future for all.

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Comments

  1. Some Dude said on March 19, 2023 at 11:42 am
    Reply

    Are these articles AI generated?

    Now the duplicates are more obvious.

    1. boris said on March 19, 2023 at 11:48 pm
      Reply

      This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.

  2. Paul(us) said on March 20, 2023 at 1:32 am
    Reply

    Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
    1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
    2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro

    Why oh why?

    1. Clairvaux said on September 6, 2023 at 11:30 am
      Reply

      Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?

  3. John G. said on August 18, 2023 at 4:36 pm
    Reply

    Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.

    Special event by they is a special crap for us.

  4. yanta said on August 18, 2023 at 11:59 pm
    Reply

    If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
    Better brands at better prices elsewhere.

  5. John G. said on August 20, 2023 at 4:22 am
    Reply

    All new articles have zero count comments. :S

  6. Anonymous said on September 5, 2023 at 7:48 am
    Reply

    WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
    It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage

    I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one

  7. St Albans Digital Printing Inc said on September 5, 2023 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.

  8. Anonymous said on September 5, 2023 at 12:47 pm
    Reply

    What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?

    1. GG said on September 6, 2023 at 8:24 am
      Reply

      Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.

      I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.

      And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?

      Nope, just charge the customer twice.

      Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.

  9. d3x said on September 5, 2023 at 7:33 pm
    Reply

    When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?

  10. Scroogled said on September 5, 2023 at 10:47 pm
    Reply

    Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.

  11. ard said on September 7, 2023 at 4:59 pm
    Reply

    For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
    quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
    unquote

    so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.

  12. Andy Prough said on September 7, 2023 at 6:52 pm
    Reply

    >”Now You: what is your theory?”

    That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.

    Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.

  13. TelV said on September 8, 2023 at 12:04 pm
    Reply

    Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.

  14. Anonymous said on September 18, 2023 at 1:23 pm
    Reply

    The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.

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