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Government, Military and Private Sector Fighting Over Next-Gen Cyber-Warriors

Posted by samzenpus on from the best-people-for-the-job dept.

An anonymous reader writes Both the U.S. Army and Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ launched new initiatives to address their severe shortfalls in cyber-security specialists. The United States Army Reserve launched the "cyber private public partnership" (Cyber P3) on Capitol Hill, which will give reservists the opportunity to train as cyber-warriors in six U.S. universities, in partnership with 11 employers. In the UK GCHQ announced an "Insiders Summer School", where first and second-year computer science undergraduates will be paid to attend a ten week intensive cyber-training course, culminating in a live display of their online and hacking acumen. The Government Accountability Office estimates a shortfall of 40,000 cyber security operatives, and with multiple branches of government in several western countries fighting each other (and the private sector, and the criminal arena) for the patronage of computer science students, cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue.

2 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What does the military think it is doing? by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Buying their services as consultants, or as civilian employees of DoD agencies, sure; cut them a check and they'll show right up; but some of these plans actually seem to involve enlisted geeks wearing hilariously incongruous camo in front of banks of monitors and 'cyber warrior'-ing. How is selling that going to work?

    Civilians, even DoD civilians, are held to different standards than enlisted men and officers. Soldiers are held to the UMCJ and can be controlled much tighter. Just compare the treatment of Manning and Snowden. Plus you have to pay a civilian or contractor a lot more than you can a PFC or specialist. And if you relax physical requirements for these guys, weel then what about your mechanics or clerks or cooks? Morale issues can easily rise up from that.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  2. Re:H1-b by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1, Informative

    Will never happen. It's probably the biggest upside to working in military/sensitive government IT - it can't be outsourced, the work has to be done by US Citizens (usually with security clearances) by law.

    That's not to say there aren't downsides, but worrying about H1-Bs isn't a concern.