As if to reinforce my point over and over again:
Mark Weatherford, Deputy under Secretary for Cybersecurity for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), called on the industry to work together to promote information security as a ‘cool’ discipline as he argued there is currently not enough talent in the industry. “We have a problem. There are not enough smart people in the public or private sector to help us defend our country”.
At Black Hat 2012 in Vegas, July 26 2012, Weatherford who advised he was representing Department of Homeland Security, argued that despite the perception that the government is “clueless in the cyber arena, it’s certainly not true”. He argued that the government is technologically advanced, and has a lot of smart people. They talent pipeline, however, is “drying up”, he said and asked the audience to raise their hands if they had all the talent they needed currently in their organization. Nobody raised their hand.
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/27222/black-hat-2012-theres-not-enough-smart-people-in-information-security-says-dhs/
Is DHS and the whole USA ready to address the real issue? That issue is that Americans are paying attention. And what does paying attention prove? That business is the problem: American kids can easily see business exporting our jobs and technology.
They know business doesn’t give a damn about them and will throw their asses under the bus at the least provocation.
This works great for me and my few security students: we’ll have work for life. Not so well for the good ol’ USA, though.