How to Fix the Diversity Gap in Cybersecurity

hello everybody as you're finding your seat please get ready for an upcoming presentation from Chloe miss dougie hi everyone I'm very happy to be here before we start we're gonna do a couple things for sure so you need to make sure you're seeing next to someone that you've never talked to before so I'm going to give you guys a quick 30 seconds or less to find someone that you've never sat next to each other before or even talked this is a really good time for you to be like I've seen you in the hall and I kind of want to know who you are

you need someone up there with one of you guys in the front like to go sit in the fourth row fourth row anyone you need one person up in the fourth row and you only stay in the fourth row over here it would be great oh yes Thank You stranger all right I want to just make sure everyone has a partner right you're gonna get to know this person really well all right excellent all right if you can hear me put your hands straight up excellent so I do have an education background you're gonna do a lot of fun things let's first start so welcome to how to face the diversity gap in cybersecurity as you know my name is

Chloe mr. Yee I know it's a long last name right but it's not like sports an area that takes up the entire screen I do have a master's in political research I also am a security researcher advocate MPM at bugcrowd a disclose IO supporter and a board member for four nonprofits that work with kids and women giving them equal access to education and also grants them their rights I also am one of the founders of whist not wisp but whist but you have chapters all over the world I'm a sue I like to mentor a lot of underrepresented youth in tech and try to get them into cybersecurity and the rest you guys can see and that is my

puppy right there that is Sherlock you're gonna see a lot of photos of her she's amazing so a quick little agenda we're gonna go into background some statistics our brains labels communication activity hence your new best friend next to you and some obstacles storytelling and how to fix the gap solutions so first here are the statistics women make it by 11% of InfoSec itself minorities less than 12% and these statistics have not changed since 2013 there's a 1.5 million shortage right now in this space underrepresented persons are more likely to be let go or fired and also underrepresented persons are less likely to be promoted beyond a manager title now this could also be caused by the unconscious beliefs that

we have that are socially constructed and we're gonna jump into that because bias is really are real so clearly we have a diversity inclusion problem here more companies are realizing that the only way to get great people is to invest in workforce diversity and social responsibility companies seeking to become more inclusive in their hiring should examine and question their own assumptions and unintentional biases in their hiring process so let's start examining a question our biases so we're gonna break this down so in your migdal eye which is centered right here and you've seen this wonderful graphic here there's an unconscious moment in your brain that's telling you a fight versus flight situation so if this person is

like me I'm not going to be afraid and this person is not like me I'm gonna be afraid and these are usually beliefs that are socially constructed meaning you learned it from media or from your friends from family from school and even people that weren't your friends and bullies and whatnot but the good news is that it has to be verified so in your prefrontal cortex there is a section of your brain that acts like the CEO it basically tells it whether or not it needs to chill or to act on it and this is a conscious decision making moment so the good things to know is that you can always question your biases and it's okay to be

uncomfortable because when we get outside our comfort bubble that's when the real learning begins and if we don't check in with ourselves situations like this occurs if a presses play here we go I feel labels keep our society a label that also I'll be back all these rainy now is

and they nervous the wife the wife good question pervs or they're a little more they don't make it a point to be discreet

[Music] join me and many others the drop labels campaign by posting your experiences to the labels and labels so it's very clear that one okay all right it's very clear that if we don't question our biases situations like that occur where it directly impacts another individual so we're gonna do an activity so remember that partner you're seeing next to I want you to say or pick who's gonna be a and who's gonna be B and who does not have a partner raise your hand does everyone have a partner you need partner we got some women okay all right so everyone's got an A and a B everyone's got a partner okay so what you're gonna

do is I like to do this activity and I usually do it for about five to eight minutes but because we're short on time because this is 30 minutes and condensed we're gonna do three minutes I am gonna time you during this time so Hayes raise your hands beautiful all right ace this is what's gonna happen you're gonna talk for three minutes straight about anything B's you're gonna listen you cannot speak at all you cannot speak and what I want you to do B's is that when you catch yourself thinking about this other person or how to respond you're not listening anymore you need to listen now it's gonna happiness afterwards you're gonna swap places

you're not gonna say oh yeah me too by the way that comment that you make that's not happening either usually about three minute four minute mark people start getting really deep so I'm gonna set the alarm and we're gonna get going on this actually let's do this all right everyone ready ace are you ready to talk bees are you ready to listen and catch yourself thinking and judging excellent ready and commence [Music]

and stop if you can hear me clap your hands once if you can hear me twice Cup against twice we can hear me clap your hands three times those are my ideas school it's not amazing okay all right ace it's time to switch over ease you're gonna listen B's you're gonna talk for three minutes straight about anything you feel like just you cannot comment on anything that they said okay so you have to remember it's all original material you cannot use their material use your own all right great so everyone's ready because you're ready to speak is you ready to listen and begin

and stop if you get any recover hands once if you can hear me clap your hands twice and you know the third time come on thank you okay I'm gonna have two runners with microphones you're gonna come by I'm curious to know what are your thoughts are how was that experience for you unless anyone could speak really really loud we can also do it that way okay there we go

great what else torture yes it is definitely torture I'm glad you guys got you to get tortured this morning next right yeah definitely okay it becomes a little bit weird to use nonverbal acknowledgments right exactly might as well go to the person thank you so yeah I think not knowing each other kind of actually made it easier to talk and things that I would would be harder to share with people that I'm gonna see every day exactly you can be a little bit more open you're like I've never see your face again right just talk to me it's not like we're gonna see each other there seem to be way more into introspection than expected I mean I

wasn't expecting any kind of like ins for introspection right it's this constant when I first did this actually the first thing I went through and I was like oh my god I'm really thinking how did you spawn a little too much I'm not really listening I'm not being present I think the big thing was and going to the unconscious bias aspect you look at individual and then the topic comes up and and if you're just like where did that topic come from and it's that's a cool part right getting

exactly yeah so like the unconscious part of you you didn't know what you're gonna actually end up talking and then suddenly something comes out you're like I never even thought about that exactly yes I thought the listening part was a little challenging because it felt like I was being asked to give some sort of feedback and just having to resist that I guess I didn't know if we could do like nonverbal aside yeah it's like we don't want to be rude right like I'm like I'm actually listening to you I'm not thinking of the recent movie I watched or how many drinks I consumed yesterday um what else no they had to do with my question if I was allowed to

give nonverbal signs that yes I am listening by nodding my head yeah I was trying to think should I let them do it should I tell them I think it's just natural we're always in this sense where we have to respond maybe we learned that in school I don't know got runners running so I was telling my partner Taylor here that I'm one that always likes to dry conversation and just sitting there listening to our story and not being the one speaking is a challenge and I'm always thinking oh I want to come back and just say something or drive it somewhere but it's still good to hear your stories but yeah it's just the mindset that I have is I want

to drive the conversation and therefore I need to stop myself I'm doing that exactly it's like that concept like is this okay like I really want to respond I like what you just said oh my god I want to drive this to another point I'm curious it's going to be curious one of the things that made it difficult cuz it was it was unstructured just off the cuff just talking three minutes that that ability because because it was unstructured made it seem really awkward to just find random things to talk about yeah it's like improvisation like all the time right but that's a really good comment usually that's how it works just like well I don't know what to talk

about what do I talk about next okay yes from the listening side I've played this game before and it's a lot harder if you have to report back what you listen to yeah and I don't see I could do that way but then I feel like that puts too much pressure and it's not like you're you're more like okay don't forget this don't forget this don't forget this don't forget this oh my god I'm gonna forget that what is that person's name and we don't want to do that right we just want to be present in that very moment all right so as a speaker I'm much more of an introvert and so I thought how am I

ever gonna fill up three minutes but it turned out since I had a captive audience I could say any old boring thing I wanted to and I worry about her interrupting me so my partner yeah exactly okay I'm gonna take just two more and then I gotta get back to this thing I

thought as a speaker it was very telling about what I spoke about right I definitely rambled on about who I was and those things that I talked about definitely or what how I portray myself identity to everybody else and because it was off the cuff and they chose to do those things it made me feel very like conscious of like oh yeah this is definitely what I put out to other people but maybe that's not all of me or maybe that's not what I should have chose I don't really know yeah yeah I think also because it was unstructured my first reaction was I I'm not a security professional and I feel like I'm somewhat in disguise here or an

impostor I and so my first reaction was is what I have to say good enough or like I it was checking myself is there value in anything I have to say here that is a very good point we always have that moment where we're like should I share that or I mean what are they going to think of me if I do right so we're gonna go into some stories you know also for the first time ever share my personal story of how I got here first is Rebecca Rebecca is a seaso and she wanted to join the board and she went up to a few other executives and she asked them why isn't she on the board yet the executive board

even though she's a CE so it's kind of weird and the guy turned I was like that's because you're not technical enough I want to just say that the other guy is there they weren't engineers they weren't technically there but she was not technical enough other one is Andrew by the way all these names have been changed okay Andrew works for a company that does not practice MLK Day he is an african-american male and he had to witness a conversation at his work where sounds like you know what we should do we should throw a hip-hop party you know with cornrows like baggy jeans and listen to rap music and he just he was the only african-american in the entire

company you guys and imagine having to be there like what is this nice person krystal krystal has worked for a very well-known company in their security team for 20 years 20 years and she was still a manager she came in as a manager and she is still a manager today 20 years and she's like nope I'm gonna leave I'm gonna go to a different industry now because I deserve better Cleo she decided to tell her team that on the website that they were creating there was a picture of a woman who was supposed to be a CEO on there but she's like this okay like this alright in high heels and a short miniskirt as a picture

on there she's like you know what this is not a C so a C so woman is gonna come in that room and she's gonna take up space she's gonna do this or this she's gonna be larger than life too get the attention she needs to be heard and her manager decided to roll his eyes at her when she made this comment and yes two weeks later she was fired ladies and gentlemen okay so my story my story started about a year ago I decided for International Women's Day I'm gonna write a blog about the lack of women in cybersecurity I was really a new person in this industry and I didn't know what I was getting involvement so I started

interviewing see so started contacting other women in the field in cybersecurity on LinkedIn and when I was talking to some of these women they were telling me their stories their struggles and everything and it really hit me but it didn't really hit me hard enough I went to RSA last year I was in a room with 300 people three were women and I was just saying in three was including myself by the way okay and I was just like please say those two are not assistants please say they're not executive assistants they both were but I remember going to my hotel room and I would just suddenly something hit me like a wave of emotion and I just start

crying really hard because suddenly I realized this is not gonna be good for me so at that moment even though granted there's no line for the restroom ladies it's amazing okay it's amazing great selling point anyway so that I was about to leave the field I was like that's it I'm I can't do this I have no support I have no network I'm out and so but I wanted to just give one last chance to heard of this event called day of security so I went to day of security and I walked in there's a room of 200 women okay yes there was a long line for the restroom okay Mel no restroom line because there wasn't

really any except for the volunteers but it changed me because I suddenly realized I was like you know what I need a better Network I need a better support system I got this and I decided I'm not gonna give up so what I did was at that very moment I decided I'm gonna give myself until DEFCON to get my act together so I started submitting CFPs I got accepted to a hacking diversity and I did my first talk not just that but I also got sponsored by men and women who believed in me and didn't want to see me leave the industry my tickets were paper my hotel was paid for I had passes to

five or six conferences and it was incredible because I felt someone actually believed in me for the first time in this industry and it was men and women okay and then I also went to this great party from bugcrowd and there I met a wonderful team of people and I remember at 1:30 in the morning having a conversation with the founder of bugcrowd KC at a pool at 1:30 in the morning talking about diversity inclusion in cybersecurity and that is when I knew I'm not giving up and I definitely know work out Buckhead and ever since then I have a wonderful boss named Jason Haddix you probably saw in the previous slide and I also have

incredible team they're actually in the front row supporting me and the lesson is here don't give up and also have a good support network so stories what can they do they could change our perspectives and beliefs they can remove blindfolds they can bring awareness and they can make us really uncomfortable but that's when we learn so how do we apply this well one volunteering start earlier promote the field because when we do good things happen like this guy he's someone I'm entered and he's incredible

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[Applause] so mentoring works people clearly right there networking make sure you inside and out of your office network find a good support group because when you do it's incredible what happens and if you don't know someone and you need help with that I'm here for you I will find you the network you need next speak up together okay form teams at your company bugcrowd we actually have a slack channel dedicated to women called ladybugs it's awesome and we communicate and support each other and don't do it alone because there have been so many stories of friends that I know that have been basically fired because they spoke up alone conferences tanked on shows like this that are promoting diversity

in the space and also you have Dianne ants to you have dear Shakira hacking diversity you have so many different ones to do and also push for a diverse EFP review board because when we push for conferences to change and be diverse wonderful things happen our essay this year for example ladies and gentlemen it is incredible at they're doing they're actually sponsoring whist for a special event for women on Wednesday from 46 let me know if you want to go I will let you in but last and least most importantly change starts with you and me and I hope today you have realized that so thank you for existing and being here today and just know you're not alone I

but I'm not and I will help you if you need help to get that support that you need because I don't want to have anyone in this room leave this space it's a great community don't leave it we all need each other here I have a wonderful surprise for you I do have some stickers a Grace Hopper if you want any let me know also whoever dm's me first of what my favorite book is you will get a special gift mailed to you so thank you for your time and thank you besides SF I hope you guys have a wonderful day [Applause]