Enlisting more women would greatly bolster war on cybercrime

The inclusion of women in leadership positions is a priority issue in any progressive society today.

Women’s participation in socio-economic and even political discussions continues to facilitate transformative initiatives, according to various corporate leadership data.

One such study published by the Harvard Business Review in 2019 shows that women leaders rank higher in leadership competencies, compared to their male counterparts.

Women in leadership have also been variously distinguished for better leadership in response to the recent Covid-19 health crisis.

Despite women leaders’ encouraging performance, their overall representation in top leadership positions continues to decline. 

Two-thirds gender rule 

It is encouraging, however, that deliberate efforts are being made in the public and private sectors to address the issue, including interventions such as the two-thirds gender rule.

Cyber safety is one of the areas where the leadership of women should be entrenched.

There is a conspicuous dearth of women in efforts towards combating cybercrime.

It could be a product of die-hard socio-cultural stereotypes, but cybersecurity appears to be a predominantly male profession.

This observation is largely anecdotal, yet it bears credence in that it aligns with the cross-cutting underrepresentation of women in leadership seats. 

In cyber security, there is a convincing trend suggesting that the bulk of reported cybercrime incidents involve men. This observation is arguable and subject to debate.

One prong of the argument could be that most female perpetrators of cybercrime are too smart to be caught.

The other facet could be that women are psychologically wired to deliberately eschew fraudulent cyber activities. 

Gender incident ratio aside, if the first argument holds true, the strength of women can then be tapped to foil cyber-attacks, leveraging on their intrinsic knowledge about the strategies cybercriminals employ to avoid detection.

The second argument is also positive as more women can be employed by institutions to cut cases of internal fraud.

The problem is that it is impossible to utilise either of these progressive possibilities if women continue to be relegated to secondary roles in cybersecurity.

It is important to recognise the fact that cyber fraud is expensive for both lending institutions and customers who fall prey to fraudsters’ selfish designs.

In the US, for instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that a whopping $ 6.9 billion was lost to cybercrime in 2021. 

In Kenya, losses attributed to cybercrime are estimated at Sh10 billion annually, in what is attributable to low cybersecurity skills.

Considering the fact that most cases of cybercrime go unreported, these figures are conservative. Notwithstanding, the volume of losses associated with cybercrime is a point of concern.

The major consternation is that the pace of financial inclusion could potentially be slowed down, considering that technology has played a key role in thawing up access and utilisation of formal financial services.

Operational efficiency

In the financial services sector, technology is at the core of the business, promising further enhancement of operational efficiency and facilitating more satisfactory customer service and transacting convenience.

In banking, studies have shown that lending services continue to be driven by relationships between banks and their customers, with technology playing a complementary role.

However, technology is today’s proverbial double-edged sword due to its inherent tendency to create solutions and challenges. 

Since the benefits invariably outweigh the challenges, partners in many sectors continue coming together to explore ways of combating it. 

The unprecedented rate of growth in all quarters of human development over the past decade can in many ways be credited to a rapid wave of innovation, which has helped in improving lives and tackling challenges.

In my view, more efforts should be made to tame cybercrime as a pathway to participatory and robust economies.

The call to include women in leadership should be cascaded across sectors, including ICT.

This can be achieved through enhanced capacity building and mentorship of women to prepare them for leadership positions in ICT, just like their male counterparts.

Coincidentally, October is cybersecurity month, coordinated by the Communications Authority of Kenya.

According to the World Bank, only two per cent of cybersecurity professionals are women in spite of accounting for close to 50 per cent of the global workforce.

The month will be a great opportunity to facilitate discussions on how to bring more women to the table as their input is clearly missing in important national issues such as cybersecurity.

Dr Olaka is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Bankers Association.