Cyber threats have metastasized worldwide. In the U. S., they have presented as security issues for critical infrastructure, such as industrial sites, and..
Cyber threats have metastasized worldwide.
In the U. S., they have presented as security issues for critical infrastructure, such as industrial sites, and cast doubt on the integrity of crucial information technology systems used for elections –including many vulnerable voting machines themselves that are employed and managed at the state level.
Technological approaches to curbing or countering these cyber threats are proliferating, but they alone cannot offer adequate protection. What is needed is manpower: hundreds of thousands of information security professionals working in the private and public sectors to actively defend the cyber terrain on which America’s national security, prosperity, and democracy depend.
Like many private companies and public agencies in the U. S., the Department of Defense struggles with a shortage of information security professionals. But RAND research suggests that the armed forces, and the nation more broadly, might already have some of the personnel resources it needs — in the ranks of its Reserves and National Guard.
RAND researchers studying the skills of personnel in the Army National Guard and the U. S. Army Reserve in 2015 estimated, conservatively, that more than 100,000 of these men and women have some degree of cyber competence, including thousands with deep or midlevel cyber expertise.
Many of these soldiers, like their counterparts in the reserve components of other military services, perform information security functions in their civilian careers, often in high-tech sectors.
