Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infras

Public-Private Solutions to Educating A Cyber Workforce Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infras

Cybersecurity is an issue that affects every sector of our economy and every sector of our society. The risks are broadly shared, [which] shows the need for an integrated approach to address the challenge of the cyber skills gap. Cyber attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication, but the availability of qualified cybersecurity professionals to deal with these challenges is simply not keeping pace. We cannot speak to the shortage of workers without recognizing the importance of the academic pipeline that produces today's work force, as well as our next generation of experts who will need to keep pace with the technology and the ever-evolving threats. The dearth of cybersecurity talent is a major resource constraint that impacts our ability to protect information and assets. More than 200,000 cybersecurity jobs in the United States are unfilled, and the demand for positions, like the information security professionals, is expected to grow by as much as 53 percent through 2018. Just as the connected world expands and new products improve our quality of life, simplifying many tasks, our vulnerabilities move in parallel and demand a skilled work force who can protect the functionality and preserve confidentiality data. Public and private hiring systems must likewise shift and adapt to a new way of thinking about hiring and recruiting. We need intellectual capital that better reflects the qualifications and skills of a new type of cyber worker.