Lack of cybersecurity specialists sparks concern

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0902/090402td2.htm

By Molly M. Peterson 
National Journal's Technology Daily 
September 4, 2002 

The United States is facing an alarming shortage in skilled workers to
protect the nation's critical infrastructures from cyberterrorism and
other threats, several homeland security and high-tech experts said
Wednesday.

"There is going to be more demand ... for people with [information
technology] skills," Harris Miller, president of the Information
Technology Association of America, said during a cybersecurity
conference in Washington sponsored by the MIS Training Institute. "It
is a huge problem we have in this country—not having enough people
with adequate skills and training."

Stressing the need to make information security second nature, Mark
Holman, deputy assistant to the president for the White House Office
of Homeland Security, said the president's forthcoming national
strategy for cybersecurity—due to be released Sept. 18—will address
the need for skilled workers to help defend computer networks.

Holman said the strategy aims to be a "living document" that will grow
and change as the technology changes. The document will contain
sections that address home users' security and network security
issues, Holman said. It also will categorize critical infrastructure
issues by industry, such as water filtration, electricity or
telecommunications.

Government and industry also must educate each other about
infrastructure vulnerabilities and threats through information-sharing
analysis centers (ISACs) and other partnerships, according to Ronald
Dick, director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center.

Dick noted that although about 90 percent of the nation's
infrastructures are owned and operated by the private sector, "the
scale at which the private sector looks at vulnerability assessments
is very narrow from a national infrastructure-protection standpoint."

Finding and retaining skilled workers to protect the military's
critical infrastructures also must be a priority, according to
Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon, who chairs the House Armed
Services Procurement Subcommittee.

Weldon said the military is facing a crucial shortage in information
security specialists, in part because workers with those skills can
earn more money in the private sector. "It's been a challenge to keep
that level of competence in the military," Weldon said. "We're still
on the cutting edge, but ... it's extremely difficult."

Weldon said he plans to propose a new scholarship program in which the
federal government would pay the undergraduate and graduate tuitions
of students seeking careers in information security. Those students in
turn would spend several years as "cyber warriors" in the military.

Weldon said "information dominance" will be a military buzzword in the
coming years because terrorist networks and enemy states that could
never match U.S. strength on the battlefield are looking to cyber
warfare as a central strategy.

"All that smart technology that allows us to dominate any battlefield
at any time is all computer-dependent," Weldon said. "We've never
fought this kind of threat before."

A failure to protect the nation's critical infrastructures could have
disastrous consequences, both at home and on battlefields abroad,
Weldon said. "We don't know when or where the next attack will occur,"  
he said. "But I can tell you this: It will involve information
systems."

Maureen Sirhal contributed to this report.



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