Deloitte Women in Cyber

Meet Erica. Erica is a Senior Manager in the Deloitte US Cyber practice at Deloitte US who leads a team of cyber professionals who contribute to strengthening national security against cyber adversaries. The kinds of problems Erica works to solve are always changing, but the thing that remains the same is her goal: to put systems in place to protect our nation’s security. While she didn’t consider herself a technical person before she got placed on her first cyber project, she learned the skills needed to be good at her job – and now leads a team of over 100 cyber professionals doing really meaningful and impactful work.

“I feel as a woman working in cyber that I have a ton to offer. I feel empowered because I know that women bring such a different perspective to the most complicated cyber challenges and that makes me excited to go to work every day.”

Erica’s advice to anyone considering a career in cyber is that not all cyber roles are deeply technical. A variety of skills is needed to address the constantly evolving cyber challenges and take advantage of future cyber opportunities, as well. Authenticity, creativity and a great attitude go a long way.

We need more like Erica. We need more like you.

About her work:

Erica has more than ten years’ experience leading delivery of a broad portfolio of cyber capabilities to the Federal Government, including: Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) policy and technology, Risk Management and Analytics, Cyber Reconnaissance, and Enterprise Intelligent Configuration Management as a Service. She has earned Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Information Privacy Professional/Government (CIPP/G) certifications.

Meet Deborah, when she’s not leading and inspiring the US Cyber practice for Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, you might find her training the next generation of service dogs. Her commitment to serving others runs deep and that includes making sure that Deloitte Cyber is best positioned to help its clients address their most complex challenges from digital transformation to exploring 5G, connected technologies, supporting a remote workforce and beyond.

Deborah believes having a diverse group of leaders come to the table to solve complex problems is an imperative when it comes to cyber. Security teams have looked the same for years due to preconceived notions defining security professionals. "As the threat landscape evolves, we need to also pivot our approach to cyber talent." Deborah says the industry has a long way to go to include more individuals from typically underrepresented groups, but that is why her commitment to Deloitte Cyber is to bring that diversity of backgrounds, demographics and experiences to our clients in order to bring the diversity of thought needed to solve the challenges associated with an evolving threat landscape.

We need more like Deborah. We need more like you.

About her work:

Deborah has 25 years of information technology experience spanning numerous industries with an in-depth focus on government and public services, life sciences and health care, and financial services. She specializes in collaborating with clients on cybersecurity and technology transformation, and privacy & governance initiatives. Additionally, Golden serves on Virginia Tech’s Masters in Information Technology Advisory Board.

Golden is an active speaker and author on cybersecurity top-of-mind issues and women in cyber mentoring. She has co-authored and spoken on the following topics:

•"AI-Augmented Cybersecurity," discussing how cognitive technology can address the cyber workforce shortage;
•"Addressing Cyber Threats: Multi-Factor Authentication for Privileged User Accounts," describing how passwords are not enough and proactive steps organizations can take; and
• "Elevate Women in the Workplace," featured speaker at the SheBelieves Summit, whose mission is to empower individuals to achieve their goals in this ever-changing marketplace.

Golden’s insights have also been published in The Wall Street Journal and FCW on the topics of multifactor authentication and thinking like an adversary. She has appeared in numerous news outlets including Federal Times and Federal News Radio on issues ranging from biometrics to cyber simulations.

Golden was named to the Top 10 Cyber Executives to Watch where she elaborates on her passion for cyber and the elevation of cyber risk across the boardroom and executive agendas as the imperative to manage programs from a risk perspective continues to evolve and mature.

Meet Aqsa, a Specialist Leader and Identity and Access Management professional in the US Cyber practice at Deloitte. She works with healthcare clients to make sure that the right people have access to the right resources at the right time. Aqsa is proud to be making a difference in the lives of many people. She has been intrigued by access management from the beginning of her career, working on a project that allowed college students access to their financial data so they could request aid – and she saw it as much more than that. It was a way to securely connect people with their data. And although many activities that happen in cyber are behind the scenes, the impact of those activities is seen every day, everywhere. “Just imagine your information getting stolen either on social media or at a store where you may have used your credit card. I feel like I’ve been able to make a difference.” For Aqsa, what drives her passion is the innovation; the challenge of making sure that the unique requirements of different industries are met in an efficient way. And the opportunity to share a unique perspective and be heard.

We need more like Aqsa. We need more like you.

About her work:

Aqsa specializes in Identity and Access Management (IAM) with a successful track record providing public services in security systems integration, technical architecture design to implementation, and project management of designated solutions. She has more than 5 years’ experience working on large, highly visible, and complex projects across a variety of industries while leveraging a diverse range of technologies to meet a required functionality set.

Meet Emily Mossburg, Deloitte’s Global Cyber Leader. A 20+ year cybersecurity professional, Emily Mossburg leads Deloitte’s Global Cyber strategy driving the continued evolution and expansion of the practice’s global reach, innovative cyber capabilities and team of 22,000 cyber professionals worldwide. Deloitte was recently ranked No. 1 globally by Gartner in Security Consulting Service for the tenth year in a row.

"I love being the global cyber leader for Deloitte. It is a fantastic role. I get to work with clients around the globe, across industries, I get to work with an amazing team that’s focused in on really understanding our clients most complex problems. And what we try to do as a team is truly understand what it is that our clients are dealing with so that we can put together solutions for them that not only help them through that challenge but that make them stronger in the end. And it’s really the people that we’re bringing together, the technology that we’re bringing together and the fact that we have a team that’s working together around the globe. It is a fantastic role; I’m so blessed to have it."

Through her work, Emily tackles the challenges she encounters by turning them into opportunities for clients, empowering them to come out stronger in the end; helping them create a shared culture of safety and trust that moves the entire business forward. The impact of her work doesn’t stop at the client, however. "What we do in cyber has a huge impact on our families, our societies, our enterprises, and really the way in which the globe interacts. We’re really focused in on making the world a more secure place…"

We need more like Emily. We need more like you.

About her work

In the nearly two decades that Emily has been with Deloitte, she has supported some of the firm’s largest and most strategic clients to understand their cyber posture, transform their cyber program during business and marketplace shifts, and strengthen their cyber programs when faced with cyber incidents. This included implementation of new programs and solutions in areas such as data risk, incident and breach response, identity management and cyber resilience. In addition, she has served as a trusted advisor to client leadership including CIOs, CTOs and CISOs, which included a myriad of enterprise security challenges and program improvements.

For Deloitte, Emily has had numerous leadership roles and currently also serves as an Advisor to Deloitte’s Global Board – information oversight committee.

Emily Mossburg is a recognized leader and authority on cybersecurity and was recently named one of the "100 Fascinating Females Fighting CyberCrime" by Cybersecurity Ventures.

Mossburg’s insights have also been published in Forbes on topics such as securing a remote workforce, SC Magazine on diversity in the workplace. She has appeared in numerous news outlets including CNBC and Tech Republic on issues ranging from election security, why companies ignore security in transformation, to the future of cybersecurity.

Eminence:

• Work from Anywhere. Cyber Everywhere
• The Future of Cyber Survey

Meet Sakina, an ethical hacker on the Deloitte Netherlands cyber team. She spends her day hacking – but there is nothing nefarious happening here. She’s part of a team that tests infrastructure, web applications, mobile applications – if it’s hackable, Sakina and her team are testing it to find out where the vulnerabilities are before the cyber adversaries do and help clients fortify their cyber processes. Once in her clients’ networks, they use their permissions in a controlled environment to see just how much they can exploit to understand what’s at risk. Her work helps clients across all industries – from health care to retail and everything in between. She enjoys using her hacking skills for good – “it feels great to help society and make an impact. There is nothing like the feeling of finding vulnerabilities in a client’s network and helping them fix those vulnerabilities.”

Sakina has always had an interest in computer science, having studied it from the time she was a young girl, and even pursuing a master’s degree in Cybersecurity, which launched her career in cyber. It has empowered her to pair that interest in computer science and research with her passion for helping people. With new threats popping up every day – whether it’s zero-day exploits, new vulnerabilities or new breaches – it’s a challenging career that requires her to keep up with the latest threats. But it’s not impossible. Some of her favorite projects involve red teaming because of the social aspect of working together, the adrenaline, and the skills they learn from each other in the process.

We need more like Sakina. We need more like you.

About her work:

Sakina Asadova is a senior consultant within the Cyber & Strategic Risk practice of Deloitte Netherlands Risk Advisory. She works on various projects in the realm of infrastructure and application (web & mobile) security testing, configuration review, TNE (technical network exploitation) and cryptography (in particular, key management and PKI).

Meet Sasha, an ethical hacker for Deloitte Singapore’s Detect & Respond cyber team. In her role, she does penetration testing, performing authorized cyberattacks on clients’ organizations to find and exploit vulnerabilities. Essentially, she hacks into a client organization (with permission from the client) before a cyberattacker can, empowering the client to strengthen their security posture and keep their sensitive information protected. What she loves most about her job is that every day is different, fun, interesting. She meets different people and works on a variety of projects that expose her to new experiences every day; and that keeps it interesting.

Sasha studied Information Technology at university and was initially attracted to the field because of how broad it is, with many opportunities to do different things. After joining Deloitte Cyber, she found the same to be true of cyber that she did of IT – the opportunities to do different things, especially things that truly make a positive impact on society through cyber, are endless.

Sasha’s advice for those considering a career in cyber: “In the current world where the pandemic is so rampant, cyber is increasingly important; especially cybersecurity because a lot of business, small businesses, big businesses are all moving online and relying on cyber. So there are so many opportunities for anyone to make a difference.”

We need more like Sasha. We need more like you.

Meet Shackerah, a Specialist Master on the Detect and Respond team in the US Cyber practice. Her job is to find cyber adversaries who breach organizations trying to steal data or sensitive information; stop them before they can inflict financial, operational and reputational damage; and figure out how they got there in the first place. She’s passionate about helping clients through a breach and helping them make adjustments to their current infrastructure so they can better detect threats and protect their organizations for the future. Each situation is unique, and she learns something as well, using those experiences to improve new capabilities she develops.

While Shackerah’s career didn’t start out in cyber, she’s happy she made the leap to try it out and learn more. In hindsight, she says that her biggest obstacle to getting into cyber was her own thought process and self-doubt. Her advice to anyone considering a career in cyber is to just try it - cyber is so broad, and you can do almost anything – there is so much need for cyber professionals - and the opportunities are endless.

We need more like Shackerah. We need more like you.

About her work:

Shackerah has a diverse skillset spanning Windows Domain administration, Vulnerability Management, Log Management, E-mail & Web Security tools, End-Point solutions, IPS/IDS solutions and more. A graduate of Howard University with an undergrad in Computer Information Systems and graduate degree in Supply Chain Management, Shackerah understands how a broad vendor ecosystem can create vulnerabilities for an organization.

Meet Shay. Shay is a Senior Manager and privacy advisor in Deloitte Cyber’s privacy practice in the Netherlands. She works with the world’s largest corporations, governments, as well as smaller organizations and start-ups across industries to make the most of their data while adhering to complex regulatory arrangements. Her work is not about saying, “No, you can’t do it”, but rather, finding ways to empower clients to seek opportunities to use their data in beneficial ways - while keeping it secure. And she points out that critical to keeping data safe is remembering that behind that data are real people who are benefitting from the work that she does, whether it’s to pay their people at the end of the month, or to target new customers through marketing initiatives and grow their business.

After earning her master’s degree in law, Shay went on to work on the digital agenda for Europe, and thus grew her passion for data privacy. She joined Deloitte as part of the cyber team, and although she doesn’t consider herself a technical practitioner, she works closely with those who are.

“I’m definitely aware of the fact that the work that I’m doing impacts people in the real world. And I hope it impacts them in a positive way because what we try to do is keep your data safe, but also create solutions that they can benefit from. I think you always have to keep in mind that it is about real people. You work with real people and you also try to find solutions that affect real people.”

We need more like Shay. We need more like you.

About her work:

Shay is an experienced privacy professional driven by substantive knowledge. She has experience working on (major) international projects in various sectors. Shay is often charged with leading particular areas in a project. Shay has broad experience working for a variety of clients in multiple privacy projects. Her most recent projects include: GDPR implementation in FSI; GDPR implementation in FMCG sector; performing Privacy Gap Assessments and Data Protection Impact Assessments; and creating a data processing inventory.

Meet Agne, a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Netherlands on the Cyber Strategy team. She uses her skills every day to step into the minds of cyber criminals and think about what their strategy is, what they are looking for, what tactics they use – all in an effort to inform society about how we can better protect ourselves. Through red teaming exercises, education and awareness programs and simulations, she helps her clients think through various scenarios that can happen and build resilience against cyberattacks. She empowers them to protect themselves against potential cyber threats with her knowledge and analysis of attacks and trends in their industry. What she loves most about her job is the challenge. There is no playbook for what she does, she is constantly pushed to think outside the box and think through the various outcomes that are possible in a situation.

Agne didn’t always work in cyber. She first got into it when she was working on anti-money laundering and fraud investigations projects, where she worked closely with colleagues who were experts in cybersecurity. This sparked her interest and encouraged her to learn about cyber, ultimately landing her where she is today. But coming into a cyber career, she wasn’t always confident that it would be a good fit for her. She says, “I was not sure if I’m going to be good for it, if I’m fit for it because I never studied computer science. I never received a cybersecurity degree.” So she encourages anyone thinking about a career in cyber to explore what is out there, not to be intimidated by the complexities of cyber, and not think you are limited because you don’t have a certain type of degree. To take advantage of the cyber opportunities of the future, we need professionals with diverse backgrounds and opinions.

We need more like Agne. We need more like you.

Meet Felicia, a Cyber Security Architect in Deloitte Singapore. She helps her financial services clients to evaluate their systems and security architecture to mitigate cyberattacks, decreasing the likelihood of fraud occurring and protecting customers’ personal data from being stolen.

Having started as a full-stack developer in machine learning as part of a cloud engineering team, she saw the vast opportunities provided by a career in cybersecurity and jumped at the chance join Deloitte Cyber. She values the diversity of clients she works with and the kinds of challenges she helps them to tackle. Every day, Felicia brings her unique perspective and attention to detail to make a positive impact not only on her clients, but ultimately society.

She believes that diversity in a cyber workforce leads to diversity in thought, new perspectives, different ways of thinking through a problem, looking at details from various angles. She encourages young women that if they enjoy working as part of a team to protect digital identities, personal data, sensitive information – then a career in cyber is for them.

We need more like Felicia. We need more like you.

About her work:

A full-stack polyglot developer with over 13 years of experience in software development & delivery with Java, JavaScript, Python, and Go language.

Meet Edna, the Asia Pacific Cyber Strategy leader and Executive Director in Deloitte Singapore’s Risk Consulting Services. A self-proclaimed internet policewoman, she not only helps make the internet more secure, but also empowers her clients by educating them about cybersecurity. Edna started her career in IT, after having earned a degree in Computer Science. After a few years, she found her passion for cyber through penetration testing. She and her team perform authorized simulated cyberattacks on their clients’ organizations in an attempt to find and exploit vulnerabilities before adversaries do.

She says the highlight of her career thus far was early on in her career working for a banking client and successfully penetrating the bank’s mainframe which stored bank balances and other private information. It’s this very important work that empowers clients to understand their organizations’ vulnerabilities and proactively address them so they can protect their customers.

Edna says that the advancements in technology that are being made and society’s increasing reliance on that technology makes cybersecurity something that is hard to ignore. Which makes cyber such an interesting area to work – “it’s definitely very exciting because it’s constantly evolving.”

We need more like Edna. We need more like you.

About her work:

Edna is a Director with the Risk Consulting Services practice of Deloitte Singapore. She has more than 11 years of experience in the IT advisory field. Her core competencies are in the areas of SAP GRC, IT Security, Risk Management, Standards Compliance and IT Audit (operational processes and controls). Edna has implemented secure gateway solutions and provided security advisory for various industries in Southeast Asia.