Technology giant, IBM said it is providing scholarship for “all” women that want to attend EC-Council’s Hacker Halted security conference.
The EC-Council is the world’s leading information security certification body since the launch of their flagship program, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), which created the ethical hacking industry in 2002.
According to a statement from EC-Council, the scholarship is designed to help address the underrepresentation of women in cyber security and encourage women further their skills and expertise in the field.
“The cybersecurity industry is facing a talent shortage that is anticipated to reach 1.8 million open and unfilled information security jobs within the next several years. With women representing only 11 percent of the information security workforce 1, creating more opportunities for women in security is a critical part of improving the talent pool in the fight against cybercrime,” EC-Council noted in the statement.
The Hacker Halted security conference is scheduled to take place October 9-10, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the first time IBM will fund a scholarship that allows all women who are interested in attending the conference to do so. The company has been sponsoring the conference and Gloabl Cryberlympics for the past three years.
“Improving the diversity of the cybersecurity workforce is essential to overcoming the growing threats and challenges facing the industry – and supporting growth opportunities for women in this field is a critical part of that equation,” said Diane Delaney, worldwide Talent Manager at IBM Security, “By providing scholarships at conferences like this, IBM hopes that more women will be encouraged to attend the event and stay up to speed on the latest trends and techniques which will help them become even more successful in the field.”
The theme for Hacker Halted 2017 is the “The Art of Cyberwar: Lessons from Sun Tzu.” Explaining the choice of the theme, EC-Council stated, “2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote 13 chapters on military strategy. Fast-forward to today and we are still learning from those chapters and applying them in our newfound digital age. In an age where war is waged over cables and microchips instead of battlefields, one challenge is defining what war is and when war should be declared.
“The conference presentations will address cyber security issues from the perspective that like it not, our global society is engaged in a constant and ever growing cyber war.”
By NigeriaToday