Cybersecurity Workers Flood Twitter With Bikini Pics to Protest Harassment

On Sunday, a woman who works in cybersecurity was headed to the beach and posted a selfie wearing a bikini on her Twitter feed. When she woke up hours later, after not checking Twitter for a while, she saw that someone was complaining about her posting a picture in "underwear" even though her bio says she works in infosec, suggesting that what she did is unprofessional. 

Her response quickly went viral, prompting several women who also work in cybersecurity—and a handful of men—to come out in her support. 

As of Wednesday, at least two dozen people posted pictures of themselves in a bikini, or shirtless selfies in the case of men, to show solidarity and to show that it's OK to share one's personal side on Twitter, no matter what industry you work in. 

The story shows once again how the cybersecurity industry can still be toxic and sexist. It is well known and documented that women and feminine-presenting non-binary people in the industry face constant harassment, both online and at conferences. In 2019, a popular Facebook group of hackers and cybersecurity professionals baselessly blamed "Social Justice Warriors'' for the shutdown of a hacker conference . The accusation was the last in a long series of sexist and misogynistic comments in the group.

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