Abstract:

The increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals globally is prompted by the acute shortage of cyberspace defenders and experts to ward off the growing number of successful cyberattacks whose sources are typically difficult to ascertain.

The science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and cybersecurity workforce is predominantly male and more specifically White males. Cybersecurity has a low supply/demand ratio of 1.8 employed workers to job openings compared to all jobs' national average of 3.34. Although there is an urgent need to increase the number of skilled cybersecurity professionals to adequately protect and defend cyberspace, there also appears to be a general lack of interest in cybersecurity by individuals from diverse populations including more notably African Americans and Hispanics. The underrepresentation of these groups in cybersecurity seems to be worse than that found in the classical STEM disciplines. Because cyberattacks put individuals and nations at risk, it is timely and urgent to encourage and motivate all groups of the population to pursue careers in cybersecurity so as to build a diverse cybersecurity workforce. Success in this endeavor would potentially contribute to an increased supply/demand ratio of workers to job openings while narrowing the diversity gap in cybersecurity.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the low number of women and underrepresented minorities in the cybersecurity workforce and to explore the career interests of these groups’ high school and college students in cybersecurity by means of an adapted STEM+cybersecurity semantic survey. The study will examine existing solutions and propose additional ones could potentially to improve the career interests and attitudes of women and underrepresented minority groups in cybersecurity. The initial investigation shows that there are relatively fewer women and underrepresented minorities employed in the cybersecurity workforce and their career interests in cybersecurity do not seem to be as strong as their interests in other STEM disciplines. Additionally, there are few role models for these populations in cybersecurity. However, research has generally shown that cybersecurity related extracurricular activities have increased students' education and career interest in cybersecurity.

Keywords:

Cybersecurity, Diversity, STEM, Underrepresentation.