Defense unveils new strategy for cyber personnel

Amid a major cyber-personnel shortage in government and industry, the Department of Defense unveiled its new cyber workforce strategy for 2023 to 2027 in an effort to update the agency’s plan to boost and unify its cyber workforce.

The new strategy will allow the Department of Defense to fully utilize its cyber workforce of currently 225,000 people, comprised of a mix of cyber, intelligence and IT staff. Defense is also seeking to expand the scope of its cyber personnel into technical areas, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data and secure software development. In addition, the agency also ensures that staff have the necessary skills and embraces efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The defense strategy focuses, among other things, on closing gaps in workforce management, staying on top of technology, delivering resilient systems securely and quickly, and transforming to a data-centric organization.

Deputy Defense Minister Dr. Kathleen Hicks signed the strategy on Feb. 27, which Thursday said was ready for public release on March 1. announcement. That says a spokesman for Defense nextgov Thursday’s press release was the first public announcement of this new strategy.

The strategy enumerates the many challenges facing defense cyber personnel, including labor shortages, potentially posing a risk to national security. However, DOD emphasizes the importance of a flexible, skilled and diverse workforce to meet threats and challenges.

The earlier strategy and implementation activities were folded into the broader DOD cyber strategy (2015 and 2018), US Navy Commander Jessica McNulty, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, told me. nextgov. The current 2023-2027 cyber workforce strategy will align with and support the initiatives of broader strategies (e.g. 2023 national cyber strategy, upcoming 2023 DoD cyber strategy). People.

The strategy focuses on four pillars of human capital: identification, recruitment, development and retention to identify cyber workforce challenges and help the agency with its workforce goals and mission.

However, each of these pillars has existing challenges, such as: a lack of common criteria for cyber-staffing requirements, the need to target and identify candidates based on filling skills gaps, limited capacity assessment and availability of enhancement programs, as well as highly skilled workers leaving for the private sector sector.

The four goals in the strategy are:

• Conduct consistent capability assessment and analysis processes to stay ahead of power needs.
• Establish an enterprise-wide talent management program to better align armed forces capabilities with current and future requirements.
• Facilitate a culture shift to optimize department-wide workforce management activities.
• Foster collaboration and partnerships to enhance skills development, operational effectiveness and career-expanding experiences.

We look at every aspect of the cyber-employee lifecycle to ensure that we not only find and hire a diverse group of skilled cyber specialists, but also develop the tools, resources and partnerships necessary to help these individuals grow professionally, said Patrick Johnson, director of the Workforce Innovation Directorate. I’m proud of the work our team has done so far, and we have much more work to do to address the talent shortages within the cyber workforce.

Defense also wants to reform its workforce, for example by creating a governance structure that has a standard for the entire group.

DOD is working on six initiatives, each of which falls under at least two of the aforementioned human capital pillars. The agency is working on:

• Establish standards and assign responsibilities for cyber workforce management, including identifying, tracking, qualifying, and reporting workforce through the agency’s 8140 Policy Series.
• Code cyber workforce positions using the DOD Cyber ​​Workforce Framework.
• Create an assessment process that can be repeated to examine the requirements and capabilities of the cyber workforce.
• Look for other authorities to expand and further refine the DOD CES and the Targeted Local Market Supplement to help drive and provide flexible opportunities to recruit and retain civilian cyber personnel.
• Expand cyber workforce development and training through current and future programs to attract, retain, and develop talent DoD Cyber ​​Workforce Rotational Program, DoD Cyber ​​Scholarship Program, and the Cyber ​​Information Technology Exchange Program.
• Integrate and enhance data analytics capabilities within DOD to support senior leadership and continue to build the use case for AdvanaDOD’s data analytics platform to help evolve the CIO from compliance to center of excellence for cyber workforce analytics to aid risk assessment .

This strategy, in conjunction with our current portfolio, will help unify cyber workforce management efforts within the Department of Defense and ensure that our workforce continues to evolve through training and skills-building opportunities. Mark Gorak, Chief Director of Resources and Analytics.

The agency will also release an upcoming implementation plan with a prioritized list of implementation activities to be performed. This will provide additional information on the implementation of this strategy by the agencies.

The strategy, put together by the Defense Chief Information Officer, along with other agencies, the chiefs of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the United States Cyber ​​Command and the military services, comes after the Defense Department announced its job qualifications in February. cyber staff, focusing on role-specific requirements as the agency works to modernize its talent management.

The DOD Cyber ​​Workforce Strategy 2023-2027 sets the direction for unifying our workforce. The upcoming implementation plan will achieve the goals and objectives of the CWF strategy through innovative initiatives, McNulty said. The department’s Cyber ​​Workforce Framework is the foundation for identifying the workforce and the 8140 policy set is the standard for qualifying and developing the workforce.