Hacker Halted Security Conference Free for Women through IBM Security Scholarship
ATLANTA (PRWEB) August 09, 2018 -- Today EC-Council and IBM announced that IBM will once again fund a scholarship program for women to attend EC-Council’s Hacker Halted security conference free of charge. Funded by IBM Security, the scholarship is designed to help address the underrepresentation of women in cybersecurity and help women further their skills and expertise in this high-demand field. Hacker Halted 2017 conference saw a large increase in female attendees due to the support of IBM and the sponsorship. In fact, approximately 34% of last year’s registrants were women – a huge number for information security conferences.
The cybersecurity industry is facing a talent shortage that is anticipated to reach 1.8 million open and unfilled information security jobs within the next several years. With women representing only 11 percent of the information security workforce1, creating more opportunities for women in security is a critical part of improving the talent pool in the fight against cybercrime.
Hacker Halted will take place September 13 & 14 in Atlanta, Georgia and is hosted by EC-Council, creators of the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification. IBM has sponsored the Hacker Halted conference and Global Cyberlympics for the past 4 years. This year, for the second time, IBM will fund a scholarship that allows all women who are interested in attending the show to do so without cost.
The theme for Hacker Halted 2018 is the “The Ethical Hacker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and EC-Council hopes to highlight through the conference that ethics include working toward inclusivity in the tech industry. Eric Lopez, EC-Council VP, said, “We are so thrilled to have IBM’s support once again in making sure that Hacker Halted is accessible to as many women as possible. Removing the barrier of the attendee fee has gone a long way in making our event one of the best as far as attendance by women, as we had a huge response to this initiative last year. IBM’s support is one of the ways we continue to separate Hacker Halted from the rest of the security conferences.”
"At IBM, we take diversity seriously, because we firmly believe in the value of a diverse workforce," said Heather Ricciuto, Leader of IBM Security's Academic Outreach Programs. "It is for this reason that we are pleased to provide scholarships once again in 2018 for women to attend Hacker Halted free of charge. The success of our 2017 scholarship program, with 34% of attendees being women who took advantage of our scholarship, is a testament to the number of women interested in cybersecurity." Diane Delaney, Worldwide Talent Manager at IBM Security, added,” Through conferences like Hacker Halted and scholarships for women, IBM Security aims to encourage more women to join the exciting field of cybersecurity and help make the world a safer place."
Hacker Halted’s agenda showcases several prominent women in cyber including Marcelle Lee, Threat Researcher at LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, Inc; Masha Sedova, Co-Founder of Elevate Security; Catherine Ullman, Senior Information Security Analyst at the University of Buffalo; Tyler Cohen Wood, Executive Director, Cyber Risk and Workforce Development at CyberVista; Sharon Smith, Cybersecurity Strategy and Advisory Parter at ITPG Secure Compliance; among others.
Women who wish to register for Hacker Halted under the IBM scholarship should register here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hacker-halted-atlanta-ga-it-security-training-and-conference-2018-tickets-38704039825?discount=IBM2018Women for free entry.
About EC-Council
EC-Council has been the world’s leading information security certification body since the launch of their flagship program, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), which created the ethical hacking industry in 2002. Since the launch of CEH, EC-Council has added industry-leading programs to their portfolio to cover all aspects of information security including EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI), Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), among others. EC-Council Foundation, the non-profit branch of EC-Council, created Global CyberLympics, the world’s first global hacking competition. EC-Council Foundation also hosts a suite of conferences across the US and around the world including Hacker Halted, Global CISO Forum, TakeDownCon, and CISO Summit.
For more information about EC-Council, please see http://www.eccouncil.org.
Amber Pedroncelli, EC-Council, http://eccouncil.org, +1 7209374586, [email protected]
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