Many tech companies continue to make a determined effort to employ a diverse workforce. The reasons for this newfound staffing approach are numerous. Of course, building a welcoming office culture matters ethically. However, cybersecurity companies especially benefit in significant ways from embracing diversity when it comes to their strategic hiring.
After all, as cyber threats themselves become more diverse, insights from different points of view help effectively combat them. In short, fostering inclusivity in your staffing ends up improving the efficiency of your company’s SecOps efforts. So let’s take a closer look at why diversity matters in cybersecurity.
A Diverse Workforce Fosters Diverse Thinking
Successfully fighting hackers ultimately requires a multi-faceted approach. A homogeneous SecOps team simply doesn’t have the broad experiences to do an effective job. Cybersecurity strategist, Adenike Cosgrove commented on this issue for Infosecurity Magazine.
“How can we really expect a cybersecurity team that is homogeneous in its make-up, its thinking and its decision-making to protect an employee-base comprising a wide variety of ages, genders, and social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds?” said Cosgrove. It’s also important to consider the cybercriminal community tends to be diverse.
Understanding the Employees Cybercriminals Target
A recent study reveals phishing or other email-based attacks typically target lower-level employees, as opposed to executives. In fact, many are aimed at generic email addresses where two-factor authentication is difficult to implement. These attacks become dangerous since multiple employees at lower job levels receive a significant portion of the bogus emails.
Notably, this group of employees tends to be quite diverse. It’s a major reason why employing cybersecurity pros with varying backgrounds makes sense. Ultimately, this team offers the wide perspective necessary to craft an effective approach for protecting the company’s technical assets.
Building a Cybersecurity Team With Diverse Backgrounds
If your company foregoes diversity when building its SecOps team, expect a narrow-minded approach to detecting threats. Your team needs cyber professionals with decades of IT experience, as well as those fresh out of college. This diverse approach to hiring must also take into account gender, race, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
Recent studies note that diverse teams make better decisions more quickly. This same concept also applies to the IT and SecOps community. It’s definitely something to consider before your next cyber security staffing effort.
Looking for talent?
If you need help finding SecOps talent, connect with the team at Redbud Cyber. As one of the top cybersecurity staffing agencies in the country, we provide a diverse group of talented candidates. Schedule a meeting with us soon.
