Why Veterans Make Good Cyberwarriors

It is no secret the ranks of the federal cybersecurity workforce are notably thin. Think tank studies and media reports put the shortage of federal cyber professionals at anywhere from 30,000 to more than 10 times that in the broader labor force. It’s a matter of supply and demand, federal officials attest: a glut of open positions for protecting the dot-gov domain and a lack of qualified personnel to fill them. The federal government faces the exact inverse supply-demand imbalance when it comes to another signature initiative: reducing veteran unemployment and expanding work opportunities for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. For many, putting returning warfighters back to work as cyberdefenders makes sense.