U.S. Losing Cybersecurity Workforce to Private Sector, DOD Officials Say
The federal cyberdefense workforce is losing its best and brightest talent to the private sector because the government can’t afford to keep them, said Defense Department cybersecurity officials at a Senate Armed Services’ Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
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National Security Agency Director of Research and Development Michael Wertheimer said one of the biggest things that worries him at night is the government’s inability to hire and keep computer security specialists at the agency. “The production of computer scientists” is in decline, he said. “There are things we must do to retain them.”
There must be a “sense of urgency” in the government’s cyberworkforce recruiting effort, said Kaigham Gabriel, acting director at the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Right now DARPA “refreshes” its workforce “every three to five years,” Gabriel said, as federal employees depart for the private sector. DARPA’s previous director, Regina Dugan, announced this month that she’s leaving the agency to work at Google.
Encouraging the federal cybersecurity workforce is key to America’s success, said Zachary Lemnios, the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering. “This year we expect to reach a 10 percent loss in staff,” said James Peery, director of the Information Systems Analysis Center at Sandia National Laboratories. “The government level of resources in cybersecurity … usually takes between three to five years [to develop]. If the retention rate for experts is five years, then we have a problem.”
"This is an issue in private security we must address,” said Subcommittee Chair Kay Hagan, D-N.C. “It really concerns me that we are limited in pay scales and promotion scales when we look at the alternatives in the private sector.” But “we can’t win the battle in cyber alone,” said Subcommittee Ranking Member Rob Portman, R-Ohio. “As we are downsizing our military are we becoming too reliant on cybersecurity? I think our cyber capabilities should be complementing our kinetic capabilities.”
There have already been significant increases in spending for cybersecurity despite decreasing federal budgets, Portman said. The Department of Defense requested a $200 million increase in cybersecurity investment over last year and the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $310 million increase, he said.
"This is just one more challenge we have as a country,” Portman said. “We have got to make sure we are spending our limited tax dollars in a pivotal budget environment in the most prudent way possible.”