Emily is the Artemis Red Team lead and community engagement manager at Synack. 

It’s past time for the cybersecurity industry to confront our diversity crisis as we work to close a talent gap that stands at 700,000 unfilled positions in the U.S. alone.

The Diana Initiative is dedicated to solving this national security challenge, and we at Synack are proud to support the nonprofit’s marquee event in Las Vegas next month as a Rainbow Sponsor. 

At the conference, I’ll also be sharing hard-won lessons from my own experience fostering a community for women, trans and nonbinary people to champion a more inclusive cyber workforce. I hope you’ll join me and Synack’s senior director of community Ryan Rutan, either in-person or virtual (for free), on Aug. 10 at 4 p.m. PST for our talk on Red-Teaming Cyber’s Diversity Problem at the Westin Las Vegas.

We’ll be discussing the origins of our Artemis Red Team, in which we combined mentorship opportunities, education resources and even a bit of game theory to elevate underrepresented voices in cybersecurity. The program launched late last year as a sub-community of our Synack Red Team, a group of 1,500+ top-notch security researchers who hail from an array of diverse cultures and backgrounds. 

Since then, the issue of diversity in cybersecurity has taken on renewed urgency as hacking threats continue to evolve and the global cyber skills shortage shows no sign of letting up. Camille Stewart Gloster, the White House’s newly appointed Deputy National Cyber Director for Technology and Ecosystem Security, put it well last week at a cyber workforce summit: 

“If we don’t invest in diversifying the workforce – in identifying voices that are not heard in the work – it impacts not only our workforce shortage and our ability to meet the demands on cybersecurity careers; it affects the efficacy of the work we are doing,” she said, calling it an “imperative to invest in diversity.”

In the world of offensive security and penetration testing, we have our work cut out for us. Red teams have traditionally lagged behind other cybersecurity arenas in terms of accessibility, diversity and equity. 

It’s high time to change that, and it will take all our collective ideas to do so. At The Diana Initiative, we hope we can inspire you to pursue your own programs for removing barriers to create a more inclusive community of cybersecurity professionals. And for those who may want to join the Artemis Red Team to see firsthand what we’re all about, we’ll be eager to meet you. 

See you in Vegas! Follow us on Twitter @ArtemisRedTeam and our hashtag #womenofthehunt.

The post Diversity as a Cybersecurity Imperative – Synack at the Diana Initiative appeared first on Synack.

By Kim Crawley

The Artemis Red Team, a new subgroup within the Synack Red Team, was formed to encourage women, trans and nonbinary people to excel in their pentesting careers. There are vast numbers of untapped and underrepresented hacking talent in the world, and the Artemis Red Team is actively seeking these individuals out, giving them a home for mentorship and helping them develop their professional skills.

Members of the Synack Red Team, a large group of carefully vetted security researchers who conduct vulnerability testing and bug hunting engagements through the Synack Platform, play an integral role in improving the security of organizations and businesses of many different sizes and across many different industries. 

Women and other gender minorities’ representation remains disproportionately low in tech, which has long consisted mostly of men. For an organization committed to helping solve the cybersecurity skills gap, developing a program to openly welcome women, trans and nonbinary people only made sense. 

“It started from the idea that the women researchers should have their own space, their own group to boost interactions and create a safe place for discussions and guidance among the women,” said ART member BattleAngel (her handle on the Platform). “My involvement in the ART as a researcher and a mentor is that I get to share my knowledge with other women on this team.”

Investing Back into the Community with the Diana Initiative

The Synack Red Team is proud to be a 2022 Rainbow sponsor of the Diana Initiative, one of the most important events and organizations supporting women, trans and nonbinary people in cybersecurity, which takes place in Las Vegas on Aug. 10 and 11, conveniently around Black Hat USA and DEF CON.

During the 2015 DEF CON, a group of nine women came together to talk about their struggles in a male-dominated field and ways they could support one another. From that discussion, the Diana Initiative was born. 

The Artemis Red Team had a similar origin story in that the SRT community managers knew they needed to create a space just for women and gender minorities if they wanted to help grow the number of security researchers. The energy and momentum behind Artemis is palpable. You’ll see some excited Synack, Synack Red Team and Artemis Red Team people at the Diana Initiative this year. 

The Path to Equity 

According to (ISC)²’s Women In Cybersecurity report, women are 25% of the cybersecurity workforce. For the Synack Red Team, creating equitable opportunities for members means ensuring that Artemis members have the ability to level up their skills and learn from each other. Taking on tougher missions means a higher payout or reward. 

Mentorship is a huge aspect of the Artemis Red Team. Member BattleAngel said her proudest moment was being selected by the larger ART community as its top mentor.

“I am glad that they are able to reach out to me in case of any doubts or queries and I can help guide them,” she said. “I’ve always advocated a lot about empowering women and helping them grow their skills, through ART I have been able to do that for all the women in our team.”

To be a part of the Artemis Red Team, all you need is to have a strong skill set and go through the vetting process. BattleAngel described the type of support and development you receive as a member of ART:

“Even if you’re fairly new to this field, I would suggest you just keep your focus on learning more. There are multiple incentives that Synack provides to women researchers—be it in providing special access to targets or hosting various CTF challenges particularly for women researchers—so they can join this amazing team.”

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