A substantial amount of coverage has been given to the growing shortage of science, technology, engineering and math grads, as well as A similar amount of coverage has been given to the shortfall of cybersecurity-trained individuals. There are numerous estimates as to just how large the shortfall actually is and while there are different numbers, it is still a huge issue. If fact, this is so concerning the U.S. military is taking steps to get ahead of this problem.
Early this year a quote was published that stated tThe U.S. military is looking to the private sector and National Guard cyber professionals to address the critical need in the event there is a national cyber emergency, as Eric Rosenbach, the defense principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense, told the Senate Armed Forces committee in April. One official is reported to have said in time of need, the Pentagon would draft thousands of private sector cyber pros and bring in National Guard cyber pros in the event of a network cyber emergency affecting America. Yes, the word "draft" ‘DRAFT’ was used. One account put the figure at a few thousand draftees referred to them as "surge forces." Surge forces would be used to defend our nation’s critical infrastructure.
Last week and interesting point was raised: pertaining to this issue. The National Guard, and reserves are made up of individuals from the private sector. Many of those individuals work in cyber for the private sector. Their work day in and day out protects the nation’s critical infrastructure already. An online search was done and no report or study could be found that addressed or quantified the cyber resource overlap. Have we double counted these resources? Would it be a good idea to pull the private-sector employees who that defend our critical infrastructure from cyberattacks in their civilian jobs? We should also not forget about all the cybersecurity companies that have been contracted to provide cybersecurity services for utilities, hospitals, telecommunications providers and other much more - aka critical infrastructure. An online search was done and no report or study could be found that addressed or quantified the cyber resource overlap. Businesses (the private sector) and the military needs to be asking this question! What is the overlap? The time to sort this out is now before the critical need arises in time of crisis.
