DOD plans to expand nation's elite cybersecurity force By William WelshJan 28, 2013 The Defense Department plans to expand its cyber workforce five-fold as part of a deliberate effort to transform it from a mainly defensive force to one that is capable of carrying out a wide range of offensive cyber operations against foreign adversaries, reports the Washington Post. GEN Keith Alexander, the head of the U.S. Cyber Command, has drafted a plan that would expand the organization's cyber workforce from 900 to as many as 4,900 civilian and military professionals, said U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the expansion hasn't been formally announced. The proposed plan would establish three categories of mission forces within the Cyber Command: national, combat and cyber protection, the story said. National mission forces would guard computer systems that run electrical grids, power plants and other critical infrastructure essential to U.S. national security, combat mission forces would help U.S. commanders overseas plan and carry out attacks and other offensive operations, and cyber protection forces would defend DOD networks, the story said. Foreign governments, individuals and organizations are all engaged in trying to take advantage of vulnerabilities in the cyber domain, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Martin Dempsey said in a Jan. 24 interview on NBC. "What I worry about is that [a cyberattack] could be used to implant a destructive device that could cause significant harm to the industrial base, whether it's critical infrastructure or the financial network," Dempsey said. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has frequently sounded the alarm about the threat of a cyber-Pearl Harbor and the general vulnerability of U.S. military networks and critical infrastructure to cyberattacks by foreign actors, notes the New York Times. Panetta has said that he believes an aggressor nation or extremist group could precipitate a national crisis for the United States. Panetta showed considerable concern about a computer attack in August 2012 on Saudi Aramco that damaged 30,000 computers and rendered them inoperable, the story said. American intelligence officials monitoring the situation later said that they were sure the Saudi attacks were launched by Iran, even though there is no hard evidence to prove that assertion. DOD plans to expand nation's elite cybersecurity force -- Defense Systems
It'll have some teeth to it when they offer some goo-goo-gah-gah salaries. Otherwise, it's just the same ole speculation.
I've got no inside info and I don't even work in that area but if I was inclined toward that area of study (IT, CS, Security) I would give this specialization serious consideration. These worries are NOT going to go away.
