Lady Bosses Under Siege: How Cyber Attacks Threaten Women Entrepreneurs & Digital Businesses

The swift proliferation of digital technologies is generating novel prospects for growth and advancement, particularly in developing nations. However, the advantages of digitalization are not universal, and women worldwide continue to encounter numerous barriers to thriving in the digital economy, including gender bias, diminished involvement in decision-making, insufficient digital competencies, lack of confidence, and inequitable access to funding, among others. Women constitute 28% of engineering graduates and 22% of professionals in artificial intelligence worldwide. Societal standards, accessibility to education, and the absence of role models perpetuate the disparity between women and men in these domains. The focus of this article is to highlight those disparities faced by women entrepreneurs in the digital era, such that they are brought to the forefront of public discourse, in order to catalyse meaningful efforts in fostering inclusion and effective solutions.