2013-11-05
Abstract
UK starts recruitment for Cyber Reserve Unit; India plans to increase number of reverse engineering professionals.
Copyright © 2013 Virus Bulletin
Recruitment began last month for the UK’s Joint Cyber Reserve Unit, which will work alongside the UK’s regular Armed Forces ‘to protect critical computer networks and safeguard vital data’.
Under the £500m initiative, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) plans to recruit hundreds of computer experts as cyber reservists, with the recruitment drive targeting three sectors: regular personnel leaving the Armed Forces, current and former reservists with the requisite skills, and individuals with no previous military experience, but who have the technical knowledge, skills, experience and aptitude to work in the area of cybersecurity.
The head of the fledgling unit, Lieutenant Colonel Michael White, caused some eyebrows to be raised last month when, appearing on BBC news and current affairs programme Newsnight, he said that he would be open to hiring criminally convicted hackers with the relevant expertise – providing they could get through the stringent security clearance process.
The anti-malware industry has historically taken a very dim view of former cybercriminals being employed by security firms, but in this case experts have cautiously been more accepting of the idea – presumably on the assumption that the MOD’s vetting process would weed out any individuals still harbouring more nefarious motivations.
In February this year, the UK’s National Audit Office warned that the UK faced a current and future cybersecurity skills gap – saying that it could potentially take up to 20 years to address the gap. With such a shortage of skills it is perhaps little surprise that the MOD is willing to entertain the idea of hiring reservists with spent criminal convictions.
A number of initiatives are already running in the UK in an attempt to increase interest and involvement in the cybersecurity arena: the nation’s first Cyber Academy was launched in September by non-profit organization e-skills UK, and another non profit organization, Cyber Security Challenge UK, has created a lesson plan which offers schools a series of fun and engaging activities to help children gain a better understanding of cybersecurity matters and inspire them to consider a career in cyber defence. e-skills UK is also developing the first nationally available degree-level apprenticeships in cybersecurity.
Of course, the UK is not the only country seeking to boost its cyber defences. The Indian government, for one, is also taking steps to increase its cybersecurity skills. The National Security Database (an offshoot of the country’s Information Sharing and Analysis Center [ISAC]) has pledged to increase the number of reverse engineering professionals in the country from fewer than 5,000 currently to 100,000 by 2015. The NSD has already developed a series of in-depth reverse engineering bootcamps which aim to help engineers understand different aspects of application security, learn anti-cracking techniques and learn how to create secure code for internal use.
