Category Archives: cybersecurity workforce

Senior DHS cybersecurity official Bryan Ware to step down

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Bryan S. Ware, who took the reins as the senior most Department of Homeland Security official focused exclusively on cybersecurity in January, is stepping down from his post and heading to the private sector. A former technology entrepreneur, Ware has helped lead DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency efforts to protect health care and pharmaceutical industry from criminal and state-sponsored hacking. He has also made a point of getting better data, with the help of software tools, into the hands of CISA analysts for tracking hacking campaigns. Ware’s last day on the job will be Friday. He told CyberScoop he is looking to start a new technology company. “I’m very proud of the work that CISA has done this year,” Ware told CyberScoop. “And I think against significant odds, the work we did on [protecting] elections is really a testament to what this agency can do.” Ware declined to comment […]

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Pentagon’s initiative for Black cyber students met with cautious optimism

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Not everyone in the cybersecurity community is entirely optimistic about a new U.S. military program meant to extend educational resources to historically Black colleges and universities. For years, the Department of Defense has worked to extend cybersecurity resources to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). A new initiative meant to improve access to cybersecurity resources at HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions, though, is being met with some skepticism among prominent cyber practitioners and educational advocates. Backed by the National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Office of Small Business Programs, the goal is to connect Black and minority universities with other colleges that already meet NSA cybersecurity curriculum standards. The aim is to share resources, such as labs and range time, and advice on curriculum development. The effort, known as the Cybersecurity Education Diversity Initiative (CEDI), also allocates $300,000 available for internships, the Pentagon said. “A lot of these programs almost end up being lip service,” said Camille Stewart, who […]

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NSA aims to boost Black students’ access to security education, paid internships

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The National Security Agency and the Department of Defense announced an initiative on Thursday meant to increase access to cybersecurity education, mentoring and paid internships for students at historically Black colleges and universities. The workforce development program will connect students at eligible educational institutions with internships and mentorship through the Pentagon’s Office of Small Business Programs, officials said Thursday during a call with reporters. Students may also participate in exercises at the Maryland Innovation & Security Institute’s virtual cyber range, to gain hands-on technical training that will help them to later provide technical assistance to small businesses. Students may receive paid stipends during their internships, according to a Defense Department and NSA release. Exactly how much money the NSA and the Defense Department will reward to students was not immediately clear. Shannon Jackson, associate director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Small Business Program, said the Cybersecurity Education Diversity Initiative (CEDI), is meant to […]

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John Felker, former head of DHS’s cyberthreat center, to retire from the department in September

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John Felker, who helped expand the Department of Homeland Security’s cyberthreat-sharing efforts with the private sector, announced Monday that he would retire on Sept. 25 after spending five years at DHS and more than three decades in the federal government. Felker was best known at DHS for heading the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), the department’s 24/7 watch floor and threat-sharing hub for hacking threats, from 2015 to 2019. For the last year, Felker has led a division at the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that oversees the agency’s field offices across the country. The NCCIC, which includes a vast room of monitoring screens at a DHS building in Arlington, Virginia, is one of the better known federal initiatives to warn companies of malicious cyber activity. Following the formal creation of CISA in 2018, the NCCIC was rebranded and its functions split between two divisions. Felker’s Integrated Operations Division […]

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CISA infrastructure security official Brian Harrell steps down

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Brian Harrell, a senior official in charge of physical infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, resigned his post on Thursday and is headed to the private sector. “During my time at [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], we have responded to hurricanes and historic floods, provided expertise after mass-shootings, engaged thousands of critical infrastructure owners and operators, and we are now providing the private sector assistance during COVID-19,” Harrell wrote in a resignation letter to President Donald Trump. Harrell, a former security executive in the electric sector, Harrell joined DHS in December 2018. He has helped organize cybersecurity drills for critical infrastructure companies, including the recently completed “Cyber Storm” exercise, which drew 2,000 participants. Harrell also helped run CISA’s security team for the last two Super Bowls. It is unclear who will replace Harrell. A CISA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In […]

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Ex-DHS officials urge department to double down on its cybersecurity work

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The Department of Homeland Security has been the face of some of the Trump administration’s most fiercely criticized policies, from aggressively rounding up migrants to detaining protesters. A new bipartisan report from former DHS officials suggests the department cut ties with some of the “most partisan” aspects of its work, and redouble its efforts to protect the country from cyberthreats and infectious diseases. “For the defense of American democracy to succeed, the secretary of homeland security and DHS generally will need to be, to the greatest extent possible, ‘above politics,’” states the report, which the Atlantic Council released Thursday. The report’s authors — Caitlin Durkovich, a former assistant DHS secretary under President Barack Obama, and Thomas Warrick, who was a DHS counterterrorism official until June 2019 — propose giving some controversial elements of DHS’s portfolio, such as setting the number of immigrant visas, to the White House or another part of the federal […]

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This team wants to teach your kids cybersecurity while they’re home from school

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Coronavirus-related school closures are skyrocketing, leaving parents scrambling to educate their children while still juggling their jobs. It’s a challenging and confusing time — and Jonathan Slater and Lorna Armitage think they have something that might hold kids’ interest: a free online learning platform that teaches them about cybersecurity. The virtual “Cyber School,” slated to launch next Monday, plans to host daily 45-minute livestreams focused on topics including an introduction to coding and algorithms, online safety, ethical hacking and social engineering. Armitage and Slater are part of a growing cohort of cybersecurity professionals who, in addition to their day jobs, are volunteering to share their cybersecurity expertise during the coronavirus pandemic. “What can we do to help and care? Kids are going to be out of school, why don’t we try to put something together and get them interested in computer science and cybersecurity and tech in general?” Armitage, a […]

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Senior FBI cyber official Amy Hess to take security position at City of Louisville

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Amy Hess has spent nearly three decades at the FBI, rising to become the highest-ranking woman in the bureau and head of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. Now, she’s heading to Louisville, Kentucky, where, starting in February, she will be chief of public services, overseeing things like emergency services and public works. Mayor Greg Fischer announced Hess’s appointment last month in a statement picked up by local media but little noticed inside the Beltway. It is a homecoming of sorts for Hess, who previously served as special agent in charge in the FBI’s Louisville field office. It was not immediately clear who would replace Hess as head of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. CyberScoop has requested comment from the FBI. As a senior FBI cybersecurity official, Hess has spoken out about hacking threats from the Chinese and Russian governments, but also about how the FBI is working […]

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NSA contractor indicted for fudging timesheet

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A contractor who has been working at the National Security Agency since 2017 has been charged with five counts of falsifying her timesheet, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court of Maryland. The contractor, Melissa Heyer, allegedly filed hours claiming to have been working in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), meant to function as a highly classified work environment, when she was actually elsewhere. She allegedly filed these false claims on five separate occasions between May 2017 and July 2018. The false work Heyer claimed to have completed amounted to the government paying her and her company $100,000 in all, the indictment claims. The wages she falsely claimed to have earned amount to more than $7,000, according to the indictment. It wasn’t immediately clear if Heyer had admitted to the allegations in a review of her activity, or whether she denied or sought to cover it […]

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Cyber Command has cut hiring time for cybersecurity roles by nearly half, says DOD CISO

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Cyber Command has recently cut down the average amount of time it takes to hire someone by approximately 40 percent — 111 days to 44 days — under the Cyber Excepted Service program, according to the Department of Defense CISO Jack Wilmer. The CES program, intended to speed up cybersecurity candidate recruitment in the DOD through initiatives like allowing hiring managers to make direct hires, was originally authorized in 2016 by Congress. The CES also establishes market-based pay scales and allows hiring with or without public notification or vacancy announcements, both intended to decrease red tape in the Pentagons’ hiring process. Wilmer said the decrease has given the Department of Defense a leg up on private sector cybersecurity hiring. Since implementing the CES program, the Pentagon has seen fewer cases of candidates leaving DOD jobs on the table for the private sector. “That is a huge win,” Wilmer said while speaking Thursday at the 2019 Workforce […]

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