Wanted: Geeks to help fight Pentagon’s cyberwar

The Pentagon is looking for more geeks to wage cyberwar. Problem is, they don’t exist — at least not enough of them.

While the Pentagon plans to add 4,000 troops and civilians to the U.S. Cyber Command, cybersecurity experts say the total need is much greater. Many people consider themselves cybersecurity professionals, but as for the truly advanced operators — sometimes called “hunters” and “tool builders” — there’s a real shortage, said Alan Paller, founder of the SANS Institute, a cybersecurity training school in Bethesda (MD). These are the people who can identify cyberattacks and then quickly build the tools needed to rewrite a network’s defenses, sometimes several times a day, said Paller, who last summer co-chaired the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Task Force on CyberSkills. There aren’t that many of them in the country and everyone wants to hire them, he said.