See Full Article: https://www.technewsworld.com/story/alliance-calls-for-cyber-u-to-stem-tide-of-nation-state-attacks-180035.html
The United States urgently needs a virtual cybersecurity academy to train cyber defenders for national security, according to the Internet Security Alliance (ISA).
It noted in a recent update to its National Defense Cyber Threat Report that the federal government needs to muster the resolve shown at the end of World War II when the U.S. established the Air Force Academy to ensure the nation had the trained personnel to defend it in the new air theater of operations.
“Today, the United States faces a nearly identical deficiency — this time with respect to digital conflict,” the ISA asserted. “The nation, including every critical infrastructure sector, is under constant cyberattack from well-financed nation-states, and we lack an adequate number of trained personnel required to defend both government and private-sector systems.”
It explained that despite high investment in cybersecurity, the workforce deficit is overwhelming, with 500,000 to 750,000 cybersecurity vacancies nationwide, including 35,000 unfilled positions in the federal government.
“The United States must respond with the same urgency shown after World War II,” it argued. “While there are some government programs to promote cybersecurity training in return for government service, as would the virtual academy, they are far too small. We need to address the problem at scale.”
The ISA outlined a plan by which academy graduates would be paid at a level similar to that of West Point and Annapolis graduates during their required government service.
Those salaries are far lower than the ones paid to independent contractors to do those jobs. The difference between what the government pays academy graduates and what it pays independent contractors is so significant that it would cover the full cost of training them. Essentially, this is free cybersecurity for the federal government, the ISA reasoned.
Moreover, it added, once the academy graduates complete their government service, they will likely enter cybersecurity jobs in the private sector, where they will continue to defend our nation against nation-state attacks.
Funding for the academy could come through the Cyber PIVOTT Act, a proposed law currently before Congress that aims to train 10,000 cyber recruits a year for government positions, the ISA explained.
If an academy were established, it would need to rethink current pedagogical approaches to information security. The traditional cybersecurity education model cannot scale to address the roughly 500,000 unfilled positions in the U.S. alone, contended Michael Bell, CEO of Suzu Testing, a provider of AI-powered cybersecurity services, in Las Vegas.
“A virtual academy removes geographic barriers while enabling hands-on training through virtual labs and simulated threat exercises that can actually be more effective than traditional classroom lectures,” he told TechNewsWorld.
The risk is that these training pipelines become certificate mills rather than genuine educational institutions, so any national academy must have rigorous standards, real-world capstone requirements, and employer validation to ensure graduates are actually qualified to defend critical systems, he said.
Bell envisioned the academy combining asynchronous coursework with live virtual labs, mentorship from practicing professionals, and real-world capstone projects with government and private-sector partners.
Think of a hybrid model, he observed, with a foundational curriculum covering network security, incident response, threat intelligence, and secure architecture, paired with specialization tracks: offensive security, cloud security, OT/ICS security, and AI security.
Critically, it needs partnerships with employers who commit to hiring graduates, creating a direct pipeline from education to employment, he added. The military’s existing virtual training infrastructure could serve as a foundation — although it would need to be vastly improved, scaled for civilian use, and integrated with community college credentialing programs, like those in the PIVOTT Act.