Slashdot Mirror
US Military To Recruit Civilian Cybersecurity Experts
An anonymous reader writes The U.S. Army is to create a new cybersecurity division, Cyber Branch 17, and is also considering launching a cyber career track for civilians, according to an announcement made this week by Lt. Gen. Edward C. Cardon. Cardon, who currently heads the U.S. Army's cyber command, ARCYBER, spoke to the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on Tuesday about the growing threats and capabilities used in cyber warfare. He argued that creating a cyber career management field for civilians would result in an easier recruitment process, as opposed to recruiting internally and trying to retain the talent, he said. Cardon maintains that recruiting and retaining talent in the field is often challenging, given internal employment constraints surrounding compensation and slow hiring processes.
"Cardon maintains that recruiting and retaining talent in the field is often challenging, given internal employment constraints surrounding compensation and slow hiring processes."
Ah, internal employment constraints?
This is the same organization that will deploy a SEAL team with a suitcase of cash if the mission calls for it, and treat it like any other expendable item, and yet they can't seem to pull enough cash together to keep up with civilian pay rates.
Talk about your bullshit excuses out of the payroll department...I can't even count how many billions were "lost" in accounting. Ironically, neither can the US GAO.
The majority of major, targeted hacks (rather than just sweeping the net for vulnerabilities) - aka, the kind of stuff that the US military cares about - involves sending emails or making phone calls and introducing yourself as Bob from IT, and sorry to bother you but there's a problem that we need to discuss with you, but first a couple questions...
They don't need script kiddies, they need social engineers. Question number one in the job interview should be "Is your native language Russian, Chinese, Farsi, Korean or Arabic?" And even as far as the more traditional "hacking" goes, rather than script kiddies they're going to need people who are going to custom analyze a given system and assess it's individual vulnerabilities, people with real in-depth understanding. One would presume that in most cases that the sort of targets that the US military wants to hack are going to keep themselves pretty well patched to common vulnerabilities.
AIs doing hacking? What are you talking about? This is the real world, not Ghost In The Shell.
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
Stop Microsoft operating systems from being used.
FTFY. Stuxnet didn't care about "internet".
The Seals are part of the Navy. And due to Sequestration, the Army will lose about 70,000 shortly.
The problem with accounting is indeed a problem. One doesn't not wave a magic wand and declare there to be accounting. DoD is vast, and they've never had a real audit. Their first real audit is coming due shortly, it took them years to prepare for it because new accounting systems had to be built to handle it.
And when it comes to money wasted, the biggest problem is Congress. DoD figures it has about 25% more physical plant than it needs, but it cannot cut it because it requires closing bases in congressional districts and Congress won't let them do that. They do go though a BRAC process about every 5 years and whack what they can, but Congress won't let them whack enough.
That said, the Air Force is easily the most stuck in the past. Their whizzy new planes are more or less overkill for Daesh. The A-10 is perfect for that, but the Air Force is tasked with countering China and Russia which have been putting money into advanced airplanes. Both have been putting new money into just about everything. This bodes trouble for the U.S. and the Biden Doctrine of bending over first, thinking if they see our a-holes, they'll realize we mean then no harm. So we get the Ukraine problem and China building a new island and new airstrip in the S. China Sea 1000 miles from any Chinese territory. The U.S. does nothing because the Biden Doctrine declares that if we smile a lot, the rest of the world will like U.S....unfortunately for the U.S., its allies that rely on it won't. So they too are starting to spend more on defense. The end result will be a lot of powder kegs splattered across the world that could go off for stupid reasons because men do stupid things. And that will force the U.S. defense budget higher in the long run, presuming the U.S. doesn't take one in the neck because it ignored an existential threat (N. Korea nuking LA, Iran nuking Washington (they are able to put satellites in space which you need to send one to Washington, etc.).
All Cybersecurity guys I know will not tolerate testosterone fueled chain of command bullshit that is the backbone of the US military.
Exactly how do they think they will control and indoctrinate these people? Most are smart enough to know that most of the problems are CAUSED by the United States, and when ordered to do something unethical, they will say "go to hell"
So I am guessing threats of imprisonment is their motivator?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Social engineering is still the most common targeted attack vector. Humans are the weakest links in most secure systems, there is nearly always someone no matter how well trained and warned that will fall for well thought out social engineering tactics.
Having been in the military, and then as a contractor on TS level projects, I can confirm your first few points. The Military is often made out to be the problem child by the left, but in reality the Military WANTS to cut spending in areas where there is massive waste. Congress won't let them. So they have to cut spending on stupid shit like office supplies and people. Weapon's programs and facilities rarely get cut due to Congressional pressure to keep jobs/money in their districts/states. That is why when the Berlin wall fell it was so damn easy for us to massively scale back our presence in Europe, but stateside it has been very very difficult. When Robert Gates asked to end F-22 orders because we didn't need them, Congress told him "No, your going to buy those damn planes and you're gonna like it!" Instead, we cut military personnel and anything that doesn't involve lucrative contracts.
It doesn't fucking matter
Jesus Autistic Christ. >__
The point was "high demand labor"... which includes anyone that has special skills that are not easily trained to acquired in the market.
I gave an example a CEO because that is the most extreme example. But that same example also works for medical professionals, computer professionals, engineering professionals, scientific professionals... and anyone else that has skills that are rare in the general population.
The problem is that the government has pay grades. Fixed tiers of compensation. Those tiers work fine for most people. They're fucking useless for anyone exceptional that must be paid significantly more.
In regards to you absurd strawman that I'm suggesting we secede from the government because there is some waste and incompetence in the government... is that really the only option you're capable of accepting? So in your mind, I either have to accept anything the government might do... and amount of incompetence... or I have to secede? Really?
Please quote the bit where I said we should secede from the federal government. Quote me, bitch. I said that no where. What is up with the fucking straw men today? Seriously? Can none of you fucks make a coherent argument without misrepresenting your opposition?
I'll tell you what. I'll defend seceding from the federal government if you defend your rampant pedophilia. Tell me why you keep supporting bestiality and necrophilia.
No where in your post did you say anything about that. But apparently that isn't required for me to pretend that you did... by your own fucking example.
You owe me apologies asshole. You won't offer them... which will just mean you're a degenerate... to which I'll just say eat all the dicks. Every last one.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The problem is that the government has pay grades. Fixed tiers of compensation. Those tiers work fine for most people. They're fucking useless for anyone exceptional that must be paid significantly more.
Why? Regular large corporations do pretty much the same thing with their engineers, and it works fine. They have "Engineer I", "Engineer II", "Engineer III", "Senior Engineer I", "Principal Engineer", etc. When someone gets promoted to a higher level, that puts them in a higher pay grade. Yeah, the corporations have pay ranges for those positions rather than fixed, exact dollar amounts, but the principle is the same. The government could do exactly the same thing.
No, this won't work for positions which are entirely up to negotiation. Most technical positions do not need to be like this. They just need to have pay grades and actually pay competitively with private industry.
Quote me, bitch. ... Can none of you fucks
Yeah, that's a great way to converse with people. Do you talk this way at work?