Filigran’s Women in CTI Guide Challenges the ‘Typical’ Route into Cyber 

From Marketing to Motorsport, 16 Women Reveal Their Path into Cyber Threat Intelligence 

LONDON, UK - 24 September 2026 - Filigran, the European open-source threat management company, today launched Women in CTI: The Careers, Lessons, and Stories Shaping Cyber Threat Intelligence, a new guide sharing the experiences of 16 women working across cyber threat intelligence (CTI) and challenging assumptions about what it takes to build a career in the field.

The eBook brings together women from across the international CTI community to share how they entered the profession (*spoiler: technical backgrounds are not always necessary*), the people who helped them along the way, the lessons they have learned and their advice for those considering a career in threat intelligence.

Their stories reveal there is, in fact, no typical route into CTI. Contributors have backgrounds spanning computer science and intelligence to marketing, political science, recruitment, game development, engineering and theatre. One woman returned to work after spending ten years raising her children, while another spent seven years as a semi-professional cyclist before moving into technology!

Cyber threat intelligence is the discipline of investigating cyber adversaries, understanding how and why they operate, identifying who or what they may target and turning that knowledge into intelligence organisations can use to make security decisions.

While technical expertise remains important in many CTI roles, the experiences collected by Filigran highlight the value of a much wider range of skills, including curiosity, research, critical thinking, communication and problem-solving. The guide argues that attracting people with different experiences and ways of approaching problems can ultimately strengthen the intelligence organisations produce.

Origins of Women in CTI

The initiative was created by Mary D’Angelo, Senior Solutions Lead at Filigran, and Einat Argon, Manager, Customer Success at Filigran, after noticing a disconnect between the number of talented women they encountered working in threat intelligence and their visibility within the wider CTI community.

“Women in CTI really started from something pretty simple. In the intelligence-sharing Slack channels we were part of, we noticed that very few women were contributing to the conversations,” Mary D’Angelo said. “We knew women were doing incredible work in this field, but their voices and knowledge were not always showing up in the places where intelligence was being exchanged.”

“That matters to the entire CTI community. Intelligence becomes valuable when it is shared and can be acted upon,” she continued. “If certain voices, experiences and perspectives are missing from that exchange, we are working with an incomplete picture. We want to create a community where women feel comfortable contributing, asking questions, sharing their expertise and taking up space.”

Einat Argon had experienced the same issue while meeting threat intelligence teams through her work. “In meetings with customers, even those with large threat intelligence teams, I often noticed only one or two women present, and they usually stay quiet. When I get the chance to talk with them, I discover genuinely brilliant women,” she explained.

It’s what initially led the pair to co-author articles with women in CTI and use Filigran’s platform to highlight their expertise. The new eBook expands that idea, giving 16 women the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words.

Among them is Maril Vernon, Field CISO at Horizon3, who entered cybersecurity at the age of 30 after a career that included marketing, wedding planning and IT recruitment. Natasha Eastman, Head of Threat Intelligence at CoreWeave, began in counterterrorism before working for a Californian wine importer and eventually spending almost seven years at CISA. Cheryl Biswas, a cybersecurity researcher, spent ten years outside the workforce raising her children before an article about Stuxnet sparked her interest in security.

Lifting the Profession

The stories highlight the importance of mentorship and giving opportunities to people who may not have conventional experience on paper, with many contributors now supporting others as they were once supported. They also explore how CTI is changing, from the growing role of AI and the continued importance of human judgement to building credibility, challenging misconceptions and staying sharp in a fast-moving field.

Mary D’Angelo concluded: “Ultimately, I want Women in CTI to make the entire profession stronger, more open, more collaborative and better at sharing the intelligence that helps all of us defend against threats. Being women may initially be what connects us, but what we contribute to the broader CTI community is a much higher purpose.”

Women in CTI: The Careers, Lessons, and Stories Shaping Cyber Threat Intelligence is available from 24 September 2026. The eBook features 16 conversations covering career paths, mentorship, AI, professional development and the lessons contributors wish they had known when starting out.

About Filigran
Filigran, a cybersecurity company, offers an open-source, AI-powered, threat-informed approach to Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). Its eXtended Threat Management (XTM) platform delivers threat intelligence, exposure validation, and cyber risk reduction. Learn more: Website – Blog – LinkedIn – X