{"id":38916,"date":"2023-03-04T05:49:09","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T10:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?post_type=emagazine&p=38916"},"modified":"2023-10-20T04:46:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T08:46:56","slug":"women-shaped-cybersecurity","status":"publish","type":"emagazine","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/women-shaped-cybersecurity\/38916\/","title":{"rendered":"We should all know about these women who shaped cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Cybercrime Magazine research, women held 25 percent of cybersecurity jobs globally in 2022<\/a>. Surely cyber and computing careers are for everyone. So why are many women tuning out?<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s working wisdom is that diversity benefits teams<\/a>, but there\u2019s slow progress in getting more women to join technology-led careers and keeping them on board.<\/p>\n

Many assume male-majority teams have always been the norm in computing and security technologies. But looking back, women have been at the center of creating the computing technology we use today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Human computers: The first data scientists<\/h2>\n

The word \u2018computer,\u2019 coined in 1613, was first used for humans who performed computation. Many of the best were women: Nicole-Reine Etable de la Bri\u00e8re Lepaute\u00a0helped predict Halley\u2019s Comet\u2019s return<\/a> in 1758. A century later, Maria Mitchell plotted the planet Venus\u2019s motion<\/a>, earning an astronomy professorship.<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0US Civil War ended in 1865, war widows needed to support themselves. Women were hired as human computers. Agnes Meyer Driscoll, known as \u2018Madame X,\u2019 led the decoding of Japanese ciphers and manuals<\/a> for the US during both world wars.<\/p>\n

Women solved the ultimate Enigma<\/h2>\n

Britain\u2019s Alan Turing is famed for cracking the Nazi\u2019s \u2018Enigma\u2019 code<\/a> during World War II, but it wasn\u2019t the work of a lone genius. Of Bletchley Park\u2019s codebreaking team, 75 percent were women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turing\u2019s colleague Joan Clarke\u00a0worked out how to speed up decoding double-encrypted messages<\/a>, but unlike many of her male colleagues, her technique wasn\u2019t named after her. Clarke\u2019s job title didn\u2019t match her expertise \u2013 there was no \u2018senior female cryptanalyst\u2019 role, so she was given the job title \u2018linguist.\u2019<\/p>\n

Turing said human computers are \u201csupposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail.\u201d Women\u2019s subservience in society played to this ideal, but Turing\u2019s codebreakers succeeded because they used the same abilities security analysts use today: Logic, methodology and data analysis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Painstaking calculation devalued as \u2018kilo-girls\u2019<\/h2>\n

The dominance of women as human computers cloaked an inconvenient truth. Their work was on average better, and they were cheaper than male counterparts. The Harvard Computers, mockingly called \u201cPickering\u2019s harem,\u201d supported Edward Pickering at Harvard Observatory in the 1880s<\/a>, doing work men and scholars found tedious, unpaid or at a fraction of what men earned.<\/p>\n

The term \u2018kilo-girl\u2019 came about in the 1940s to describe complex calculations seen as \u2018women\u2019s work.\u2019 We measure computing power in gigabytes or terabytes, but they measured kilo-girl hours \u2013 one kilo-girl was a thousand hours of painstaking calculations<\/a>. The kilo-girls work was far from trivial: In the 1950s, Gladys West\u2019s calculations for the US Naval Weapons Laboratory led to GPS\u2019s development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Computing becomes a man\u2019s world<\/h2>\n

By the 1960s, human computing had given way to machines. In the 1940s programmers were mostly women, but by the end of the 1960s women made up 30 to 50 percent<\/a>. Women were still paid less and few were promoted to leadership.<\/p>\n

The perception computing is for men and boys started at home. A 1984 report showed 1 in 5 girls used a computer at home, compared with 1 in 2 boys. Female computer science graduates peaked in 1984 at 37 percent, before steadily declining<\/a>. Academic Wendy Hall says by the 1990s, men led professional computing and computers \u201cwere sold as toys for boys.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Ten women from computer history to know<\/h2>\n

Ada Lovelace invents the first algorithm<\/h3>\n

Publishing the first algorithm in 1843, Ada Lovelace<\/a> is said to be the world\u2019s first computer programmer. She realized Charles Babbage\u2019s Analytical Engine<\/a> could do more than calculation: Combining mathematics and analysis. Ada Lovelace Day<\/a> celebrates women\u2019s achievements in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and encourages young women to follow her path.<\/p>\n

Hedy Lamarr averts the Cuban Missile Crisis<\/h3>\n

1940s Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr<\/a>\u00a0co-invented a frequency-hopping method to control torpedoes remotely without the risk of signal tracking or jamming. Naval ships were using the technology by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a>. It later became part of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n

Grace Hopper invents new ways to code<\/h3>\n

Grace Hopper<\/a>\u00a0created the first\u00a0compiler<\/a>\u00a0for a\u00a0programming language<\/a>. She programmed and wrote a comprehensive manual for an electro-mechanical computer based on Babbage and Lovelace\u2019s Analytical Engine, Harvard Mark I<\/a>. She wasn\u2019t credited for this but is widely miscredited for coining the term \u2018bug\u2019<\/a> when a moth caused her computer to malfunction. She later developed computer programming language COBOL<\/a>\u00a0(common business-oriented language) and invented new symbolic ways to write code.<\/p>\n

Margaret Hamilton took us to the moon<\/h3>\n

The 1969 moon landing wouldn\u2019t have happened without Margaret Hamilton<\/a>, who programmed Apollo\u2019s flight software.It needed more \u2018human computing:\u2019 After Hamilton\u2019s programming, seamstresses hardwired the code by threading copper wire through magnetic rings.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth \u201cJake\u201d Feinler organized the internet<\/h3>\n

At Stanford University in 1969,\u00a0Elizabeth \u201cJake\u201d Feinler<\/a> created the first internet directory, ARPANET<\/a>, alongside mostly female staff. By the early 1970s, they\u2019d put together the first\u00a0WHOIS<\/a>\u00a0directory of web domain ownership. Feinler suggested categorizing domains by where the computer was, like .edu domains for educational institutions.<\/p>\n

Women who built new audiences for technology<\/h3>\n

Organizing, building relationships and human factors \u2013 often thought of as female traits \u2013 are critical in computing projects\u2019 success and creating demand for new services. Joan Ball<\/a> set up the first computer-aided dating service in 1964. In 1988, Stacy Horn<\/a> started a community in New York, the East Coast Hang Out (ECHO,) where users could chat online. Game designer\u00a0Brenda Laurel<\/a>\u2018s research showed girls wanted to play more interactive character computer games. In the 1990s, her company Purple Moon developed a best-selling game series inspired by that research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s,\u00a0Joan Margaret Winters<\/a>\u00a0researched how software should consider\u00a0human factors<\/a> for IBM\u2019s SHARE project. When you see the iconic trash symbol on your Apple Mac, thank Susan Kare<\/a>. She worked with Steve Jobs\u00a0to design its original icons.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s influencers for women in cybersecurity<\/h2>\n

When young people see people who look like them succeed in a career, they\u2019re more likely to choose it. For women considering going into cybersecurity, there\u2019s no shortage of inspiration.<\/p>\n

Parisa Tabriz<\/a>, the self-styled \u201cSecurity Princess\u201d (official title: Director of Engineering,) runs Google\u2019s security testing labs. Eva Galperin<\/a>, Director of Cybersecurity at Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF,) fights for digital privacy, security and civil liberties.<\/p>\n