According to figures just released by the SANS Institute, early registrations for the upcoming SANS London 2010 – which is billed as the UK's largest security training event – show an 11% increase of female students for the Security 560, Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking course.
The institute says that SEC560 is one of the most technically rigorous courses it currently offers.
"Over the last few years, we have seen an increase in the number of female students taking these courses, a trend which is helping our industry", said Pieter Danhieux, a top information security expert at Ernst & Young, and an instructor for the SEC560 course.
Danhieux says he has been working with more female practitioners over the last few years than at any point in his career, and believes the trend is growing.
Interestingly, he adds that there appears to be little difference in the pass or fail rate between male and female students.
"One of the top pen testers, with expertise in social engineering attacks is a lady from the UK and it is fantastic that our industry is becoming more balanced like other spheres of life", he noted.
Danhieux believes that part of the SANS experience is learning to think in a different way.
"With our course you learn how the tools work from the inside, you learn how to analyse how much 'noise' you are making on the network, and you learn how to look at an organisation from an offensive perspective", he explained.