At TechNet Cyber 2023 in Baltimore, Mark Gorak, principal director of resources and analytics for the Department of Defense’s deputy chief information officer, spoke about the Pentagon’s massive cyber workforce shortage and goal of implementing a cultural change in the hiring of cybersecurity and information security roles.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
With more than 30.00 cybersecurity and information security positions, the DoD is changing the way it was previously recruited for these roles.
“We’ve been here for about a decade trying to fix this problem and it’s only getting worse and worse,” he said.
The agency is developing a cyber workforce strategy implementation plan announced last month. That plan has a term of five years and is due this summer, Gorak said CyberCast by GovCIO at the International Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association’s cyber conference on Tuesday.
While this strategy is based on identifying workforce needs – for both the military and civilian cyber workforce – as well as recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, the Department of Defense is looking at More realistically consider what makes a candidate qualified to provide cybersecurity services.
“If you can step in and demonstrate the ability to do that job, then you qualify. That’s where we should be, and it’s going to take a while to get there, but that’s where we are.” moving forward,” explained Gorak.
The DoD will use its current network workforce framework to categorize employees by their job role instead of career codes, which Gorak previously called “adaptive, flexible, and responsive to the workforce.” workers”, in its larger effort to apply enterprise-wide talent management to its network workforce.
To do so, Gorak said the agency will shift focus to infosec skills acquired prior to hiring and shift focus to assessing candidates’ critical abilities and promoting ongoing technical training in the industry. work, just as in other professional fields, such as law and medicine.
“It’s not a new thing, but we’ve never done it in our engineering workforce,” he said.
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
TechNet Cyber is a flagship event that showcases a government-wide effort to enhance the capabilities needed to meet global security challenges and operate successfully in a digital environment, and includes all field.
Infosec’s workforce challenges across multiple industries, and healthcare systems across the United States that are experiencing cyberattacks are challenged to gain control of critical industry attack surfaces due to lack of network workforce.
“The battle for talent in healthcare today is broader than a shortage of doctors and nurses. Health IT teams are facing many of the same workforce challenges as the rest of us. in the healthcare industry, including talent shortages in cybersecurity, digital, cloud, and data,” said Brad Reimer, CIO at Sanford Health. Healthcare IT News in January.
To deliver on the $350 million virtual care initiative and the challenges facing the modern data ecosystem facing the large health system serving the Dakotas, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, Reimer note that demand for all IT roles in healthcare is growing at a faster rate than new university graduates enter the workforce and there is competition for talent” with every other company has a need for technology.”
Add to that a national call to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure, and both government and critical infrastructure sectors are vying for an untapped supply of talent. have enough and must adjust the way they recruit and retain talent.
ON PROFILE
“The training system — we need to expand it, so that we have more,” Gorak said at the conference.
With the new rollout plan, “If you’ve passed a cyber-scoping tool, you’ll be eligible for the job.”
To keep the online workforce up to date, “We’re looking at annual reviews on that.”
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
