I woke up sad and angry today with images of the white mob storming the Capitol seared into my brain. Then I read a new statistic about the pay gap between men and women in security roles, and now smoke is coming out my ears.

Exabeam’s 2020 Cybersecurity Professionals Salary Skills and Stress covered several topics, but the gender pay disparity in particular caught my attention. In the U.S., it found that, on average, male security professionals made $91,000 compared to $62,000 for female respondents. But it’s even worse in Australia, where male respondents make about $131,000 whereas females make around $95,000.

“In an industry that claims to be so ‘modern,’ it pains me that many cybersecurity organizations are upholding such archaic and sexist ideals that are reflected in the pay gap, especially in the U.S. and Australia,” Exabeam Security Strategist Sam Humphries said. As an industry veteran, she sadly wasn’t too surprised. Still, “it can be quite shocking to find such gender disparities on paper,” she added.

In the U.S., Exabeam found that the male-female pay gap gets even worse depending on where you live. In New York, male and female information security directors with four- or five-years’ experience receive hugely different paychecks. Females make between $33,000 and $46,000, while males make between $98,000 and $130,000 for doing the same job.

It’s not all bad news. In Singapore, for example, female respondents made more on average than males: $116,000 compared to $107,000. (Also: I find it interesting that Singapore pays its security professionals significantly more than the U.S.) The survey also found that pay inequality wasn’t as bad in the U.K. and Germany. It doesn’t give specific figures, but the report says the pay inequality is much less apparent compared to the U.S. and Australia.

“Today in the U.K., for the first time, there are also more than 1 million women working in core STEM roles,” Humphries said. “Knowing that women are being represented more fairly in the U.K. gave me hope the pay gap will begin to shrink even more.”

While the pay inequality on its own is maddening, the broader implications for the security industry are dire. The industry suffers from a chronic shortage of skilled professionals, and those who do work in security report high levels of stress, burnout, and depression. And that was pre-COVID and pre-ransomware-related fatalities. Women — who are already woefully underrepresented in cybersecurity — probably won’t apply for high-stress jobs where not only networks but peoples’ lives are on the line if they are only going to get paid a fraction of what their male colleagues make.

“Given the chronic skills shortage affecting the cybersecurity sector, gender-based pay inequality is akin to an industry shooting itself in the foot,” Humphries wrote in a blog post about the pay gap. “Women should feel 100% comfortable asking at the time of interview whether an organization has put a program in place to ensure pay equality. And having such programs should not be seen as an employee ‘benefit,’ but as a fundamental ethos.”

Later, she told me that all genders should champion pay equality. “The cybersecurity gender pay gap will not fix itself, so we need to demand for the issue to be solved,” she said.

And solving the problem requires a two-fold approach. “Cybersecurity professionals need to work together with their organizations’ C-suite and HR departments to advocate for any open and current positions to be operated on equal footing for candidates and employees of comparable skills and experience,” Humphries said. “Organizations need to audit their current employees’ pay and benefits and perform corrective actions based on these findings. I would wholeheartedly recommend organizations make the pay equity now pledge to make a formal commitment to eradicating inequality.”

In addition to helping fill the shortage of trained security professionals, equal pay for women in cybersecurity roles will also bring more ideas to the table about how to prevent attacks and secure environments — and that should matter to everyone.

I spoke with Hewlett Packard Enterprise CISO Liz Joyce about this in an earlier interview, and she said cybersecurity is a really big challenge that touches everything. “So you want to take all of the best resources and innovation to solve that problem,” she explained. “Technology is constantly changing and evolving, and cybersecurity is no different. It has to constantly adjust to either keep up or get ahead of the attackers. If you don’t have that diversity, you’re going to keep coming up with the same answers.”

To be fair, the gender pay gap in cybersecurity represents just a small piece of bigger inequality picture across all U.S. industries. Women workers in 2018 and 2019 made 82 cents for every $1 that men earned, according to U.S. Census data. And by some reports, the income gap grew in 2020 because of COVID-19. Women are more likely than men to work in service jobs, which the pandemic hit harder than other sectors. Plus, when schools and daycares closed their doors, more women than men stayed at home — and left the workforce — to care for kids.

This is not OK. It seems obvious that in 2021, all people should receive equal pay for equal work. As Humphries wrote in her blog: “It’s incumbent on employers to address the disparities in pay as a matter of urgency. Female professionals already working in roles should expect to see pay gaps corrected, and the recruitment process for open positions must operate with a level playing field for candidates of comparable skillset and experience.”

I truly hope employers take her message to heart.

On a positive note, President-elect Joe Biden’s reported choice for a newly created cybersecurity role on his National Security Council, Anne Neuberger, does give me hope. Her appointment won’t close the pay gap, but it will put a female in charge of the federal government’s cybersecurity efforts, and until we start seeing women in these powerful, high-profile roles, it’s tough to encourage more young women to entertain security as a career and remain in security jobs they already have. It also demonstrates that yes, women can hold high-level positions — and damn straight they should make the same amount of money as men.

I’m mad as hell, but also hopeful.