The new line of defence: women in cybersecurity - The Globe and Mail

Open this photo in gallery: Cybersecurity is one of the fastest-growing career fields in Canada, but women make up only 21 per cent of the country’s cybersecurity work force. GETTY IMAGES COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. Cheryl Hayes has witnessed the impact of poor digital literacy on kids first-hand, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We had friends with a nine-year-old daughter who ended up getting groomed on a [social media] platform,” says Ms. Hayes. “[There were] also kids down the street who had passwords and game tokens they spent years accumulating stolen because they befriended someone online.” Ms. Hayes is the co-founder and chief business development officer at Cyber Legends, Inc., a company that delivers cybersafety and coding education to kids in Grades 1–8 through a gaming platform and provides curriculum-aligned teaching resources for educators and parents. She had been working in customer success at another tech company for nearly 10 years before she co-founded the company. “It was getting to the point where I loved what I was doing, but I didn’t really feel like I was making much of an impact,” she says. Keeping children safe looks a lot different than it did when she was young, she says. It used to be about physical threats – not talking to strangers and looking both ways before you cross the street. “Now, it’s ‘Who is the person that I’m talking to on the other side of the screen? Are they who they say they are?’” She adds that parents often have the misconception that if they are using parental control features or only allowing internet access at home, their kids will be safe, but that simply isn’t the case. She urges parents to play a role in educating their children on cybersafety. Ms. Hayes is one of the growing number of women working in cybersecurity in Canada. It’s an industry where women are under-represented – global cybersecurity member association ISC2 estimates that women make up 25 per cent of cybersecurity jobs globally, but they expect that number to increase as more young people enter the profession. Recent LinkedIn data found that women make up 21 per cent of cybersecurity jobs in Canada. Open this photo in gallery: Cheryl Hayes thought she would make an impact by working with victims of human trafficking once she retired. But she found purpose ahead of schedule when she co-founded Cyber Legends Inc. in 2021. SUPPLIED Meanwhile, the 2025 LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise report lists cybersecurity specialist as one of the 25 fastest-growing jobs in Canada. It’s a space with plenty of opportunity and not enough people to fill those jobs, creating opportunities for newly educated professionals as well as individuals looking to make a career pivot. Combatting fraud Cosanna Preston-Idedia, who is currently on maternity leave, is the former vice-president, program delivery and government relations at Digital Trust Laboratory of Canada, a company that brings people, organizations and governments together to tackle the big issues involved in the creation of digital credentials in Canada. Digital credentials are electronic versions of physical documents that verify identity or qualifications, like a driver’s licence. Ms. Preston-Idedia says her background in citizen-centred services while working for the Government of Saskatchewan meant that she was already considering the implications of driving more people and businesses online for various services. She could see that cybersecurity was a huge challenge affecting citizens, business and the government. “We have the tools to stop this but we’re not implementing them,” she says. “So moving into the cybersecurity space allowed me to be part of the solution.” Ms. Preston-Idedia says that much of the cybercrime and fraud that is harming Canadians is rooted in identity or credential fraud – both of which could be mitigated through inclusive digital credentials programs. Documents like university IDs, T4s and employee badges, which are often issued with no security features, could be made into secure digital credentials that are cryptographically signed, she says. Verification technology can immediately tell if a credential is legitimate or been tampered with. “Very simply, any document or credential or identity card could be a digital credential,” she says. In addition to reducing fraud, Ms. Preston-Idedia has found that digital credentials can also help ensure vulnerable community members aren’t left behind. For example, our current system for getting documents like IDs and driver’s licences – which are often needed to access shelters or apply for rentals – is difficult and costly and the documents are easy to lose. By making digital credentials easily accessible on phones or even public computers with the right security measures, identity management could be easier for everyone. “I’m passionate about it because I firmly believe that digital transactions, be they with government or business, can be an equalizer in our society when they are well executed with equity in mind,” she says. Open this photo in gallery: Azi Vaziri, technical programs lead, Google Threat Intelligence Group, says that leading programs within a threat intelligence team isn't merely a profession; it's a deeply personal mission: to safeguard the vulnerable and uphold the principles of a free and open internet. NINA KONJINI/SUPPLIED Disrupting disinformation Azi Vaziri took her first step into the cybersecurity world when she moved from a program manager role at Google into a security team about six years ago. In 2019, she joined Google’s Safe Browsing, a team tasked with defending billions of devices from phishing, malware and unwanted software. She is now technical program lead within Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, helping to monitor over 270 groups in 50 countries and disrupting co-ordinated disinformation operations. “Co-ordinated disinformation is a set of planned campaigns, usually backed by a nation state, and this is usually done to push a certain type of messaging that benefits that nation state at the detriment of the targeted state,” she says. For Ms. Vaziri, leading programs within a threat intelligence team isn’t merely a profession; it’s a deeply personal mission: to safeguard the vulnerable and uphold the principles of a free and open internet. She says that growing up in Iran, she witnessed the chilling power of repression firsthand, which later shaped her understanding of the internet’s potential for informing and connecting versus propaganda and control. With 14 major elections worldwide in 2024, on top of the other work they do, her team has been busy. “Part of it is security, but also part of it is helping voters find reliable, trustworthy and verifiable information,” she says. Ms. Vaziri says she stays motivated by seeing the team’s impact continue to grow. For example, in the last three months of 2024, the team terminated thousands of YouTube accounts and blocked hundreds of domains as part of their investigations. “Security is always a whack-a-mole game. The job is never done. That’s perhaps the most fun thing,” she says. Interested in more perspectives about women in the workplace? Find all stories on The Globe Women’s Collective hub here, and subscribe to the new Women and Work newsletter here. Have feedback? E-mail us at GWC@globeandmail.com. Open this photo in gallery: STACIE CAMPBELL/THE GLOBE AND MAIL Sign up for the Women and Work Newsletter. 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