Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Cybersecurity needs women

Safeguarding our lives online requires skills and experiences that lie beyond masculine stereotypes of the hacker and soldier, says Winifred R. Poster.
  1. Winifred R. Poster

    1. Winifred R. Poster is a lecturer in international affairs at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Computer hacking is becoming more widespread and damaging. Headlines highlight attacks on government agencies, political campaign offices, financial institutions and big corporations. But citizens and consumers are paying a heavy price. In 2016, 2 billion people had their personal details stolen, including the medical records of more than 100 million Americans. Hacks of US retail outlets such as Target and global credit companies such as Equifax compromised the private data of hundreds of millions of customers. In the past 6 years, more than US$107 billion was stolen from US consumers through identity theft.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 555, 577-580 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-03327-w

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 16 May 2018: In an earlier version of this article, the photo of female programmers was captioned incorrectly. The women were at the US Army Ballistics Research Laboratory in 1962, not working on ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1940s (see also K. Shirriff Nature 557, 309; 2018). Also, the figure of 57% originally cited for women in the US workforce was actually for women in the US professional workforce.

References

  1. Browne, S. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (Duke Univ. Press, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Fagone, J. The Woman Who Smashed Codes (HarperCollins, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Light, J. S. Technol. Cult. 40, 455–483 (1999).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Shumba, R. et al. Cybersecurity, Women and Minorities. Proc. ITiCSE-WGR June, July, 1–14 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Shetterly, M. L. Hidden Figures (HarperCollins, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Poster, W. R. in Globalization, Technology Diffusion and Gender Disparity: Social Impacts of ICTs (eds Pande, R. & van der Weide, T. P.) 247–260 (IGI Global, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Eglash, R. Social Text 20, 49–64 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. D’Hondt, K. Women in Cybersecurity. Master’s thesis, Harvard Kennedy School (2016).

  9. Poster, W. R. Gend. Sex. Fem. 1, 37–52 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Molotch, H. Against Security (Princeton Univ. Press, 2014).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Postdoctoral Position

    We are seeking highly motivated and skilled candidates for postdoctoral fellow positions

    Boston, Massachusetts (US)

    Boston Children's Hospital (BCH)

  • Qiushi Chair Professor

    Distinguished scholars with notable achievements and extensive international influence.

    Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Zhejiang University

  • ZJU 100 Young Professor

    Promising young scholars who can independently establish and develop a research direction.

    Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Zhejiang University

  • Head of the Thrust of Robotics and Autonomous Systems

    Reporting to the Dean of Systems Hub, the Head of ROAS is an executive assuming overall responsibility for the academic, student, human resources...

    Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)

  • Head of Biology, Bio-island

    Head of Biology to lead the discovery biology group.

    Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    BeiGene Ltd.

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links