March is Women’s History Month, so it’s a perfect time of the year to look back and see how far women in cybersecurity have come. From pioneering tech to achieving a gender-equal future in today’s world, it’s a story of invention, strength and achievement.
A Brief History of Women in Cybersecurity
If you asked someone in the 1800s or earlier, few would have guessed we would have a world where women and men are allies in each and every field. Today, we see women making major tech advances and men extending full support wherever required.
The stepping stones for women in cybersecurity date back to the 1940s, when the computer industry was still in its nascent stage. Brave women called code girls cracked German and Japanese codes to help win World War II. It all started when letters appeared in the mailboxes of a select group of young women attending the Seven Sisters colleges. Chosen for their aptitude in subjects as math, English, history and foreign languages, these students were invited from various fields and offered to join the secretive wartime government project.
Code breaker Virginia D. Aderholt became the first American to learn that World War II had formally ended in 1945. She was one of 10,000 women who were the foremothers of who we now call women in cybersecurity. They worked behind the scenes of wartime intelligence.
Many women were among the first programmers who worked on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer program at the University of Pennsylvania, calculating weapons trajectories in the 1940s. These women have led us all w ..
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