Decoding silence: How deaf and hard-of-hearing pros are breaking into cybersecurity

This article profiles Stu Hirst, a CISO who navigates severe hearing loss while leading security at Trustpilot, and uses his experience to highlight employment gaps, workplace accommodation challenges, and training initiatives for deaf and hard-of-hearing professionals in cybersecurity; it argues that the text-centric, remote-friendly nature of security work makes the field well suited to benefit from cognitive diversity and calls for structural change—better accommodations, targeted training pipelines, and clearer career-advancement pathways—to close persistent gaps.