Shortage of Fed info security pros creates risk

Dickie George, the technical director of the National Security Agency's (NSA) Information Assurance Directorate, told GovInfoSecurity.com in an interview that the shortage of skilled information security professionals is a problem.

It doesn't mean that the nation's computer networks are in terrible shape when it comes to security. But George said it makes the challenge harder.

"Security is not a zero-sum game, either. You are not either secure or insecure, it is how secure are you, what is the threat, how hard is it to take advantage of that threat," he said. "It is a complicated issue. It is not to say that if I had three more people I would be secure. What kind of security can we create for the nation?"

George said NSA needs to hire the best and brightest for its work, but must compete against other government agencies and private industries. "There aren't enough people to satisfy all the needs in the country and that is a significant problem for us," he said.

He added that the security technology is available, but people are needed who have a strong grasp of the threat.

"In today's cyber world, cyber is so much more complicated than a bomb that it is really hard for people to really understand the threat and understand how to defend themselves against that threat," George said. "That education is what we have got to achieve as a nation so that we can all work together to make ourselves a much harder target."

For the full interview:
- see this GovInfoSecurity.com article

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