Talented Cybersecurity Students Sought After for U.S. Government Agency Positions

Help is wanted as many talented cybersecurity students are sought after for cybersecurity coordinator positions within U.S. Government agencies.

On May 29, 2009, President Obama stated that the U.S. government is "not as prepared" as it should be in order to respond to disruptions caused by computer or Internet attacks. It was then announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff.

Two months later, and the U.S. government has initiated a nationwide talent search for high school and college students interested in working in cybersecurity. What has now been dubbed the U.S. Cyber Challenge, the goal appears to be to find 10,000 young Americans to be "cyber guardians and cyber warriors", according to a statement from the sponsors of the event, Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Last week, a study conducted by the Partnership for Public Service concluded national security may in fact be endangered due to the lack of federal cybersecurity workers and a requirement of leadership. Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, expounded on this by stating that "people in government are writing policies and reports about security rather than having people who can actually do it."

Currently there appears to be only three competitions making up the U.S. Cyber Challenge, and they are as follows:

• NetWars, a vulnerability discovery and exploitation competition conducted by the SANS Institute.
• DC3 Digital Forensics Challenge conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center
• CyberPatriot network defense high school competition conducted by the Air Force Association

The Challenges that the U.S. faces in the cybersecurity war are complex. Just in recent news, a public incident took place during the 4th of July temporarily taking down commercial and government web sites from a DOS or Denial Of Service attack. Not only did this attack effect U.S. sites, but it effected ones in South Korea. The need for a structured cybersecurity initiative is far over-due. We can only hope that the seeking out the position of a cybersecurity coordinator will help better the system thus a new cybersecurity coordinator will help better the system as a whole thus creating a much stronger battle in the current cyberwar.

The candidates that are proved to be well-skilled in this area will be invited to attend regional camps held at local colleges during the beginning of 2010. The candidates who happen to be at the top of their class during this endeavor will ultimately be hired by several government agency. Among the government agencies that seek out these candidates are the U.S. Department of Energy Laboratories, the National Security Agency, the Defense Department, US-CERT, and finally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It would appear a war has finally been waged, and the battleground is the worldwide web. Tell us what your thoughts are regarding this matter? Are you a talented cybersecurity student planning on taking part in the competition? Leave a response and let us know.