"Preparing the Pipeline: Examining the State of America's Cyber Workforce"
Committee on Homeland Security
2025-02-05
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Source: Congress.gov
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will come to order. Without objection, the chair may declare the committee in recess at any point. The purpose of this hearing is to examine the severity of America's cyber workforce gap and assess how the shortage of skilled cyber professionals leaves our homeland vulnerable to evolving global threats in cyberspace. Specifically, we'll delve into the challenges that the public and private sectors face in recruiting, training, and retaining skilled cyber talent. We will also discuss possible solutions to mitigate this shortfall. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. Good morning, everyone. Today, we're focused on the top cyber challenge we face, and that is the cyber workforce gap. This issue has been a top priority for me and other members of this committee since last Congress, and I know it is for many of you in this room as well. There isn't a city or a state in this country not affected by this cyber workforce gap. Currently, our nation lacks about 500,000 cyber professionals. That's a deficit of one million eyes, and this means that many of our networks and critical infrastructure are going unwatched, even while malicious nation-state actors like Volt and Salt Typhoon target them daily. At a time when we need to go on the offensive, we can barely play defense. We simply don't have enough people in the right jobs with the right skills to stay on top of the significant cyber challenges our homeland faces. We covered many of those threats in our first committee hearing two weeks ago. And you can get a glimpse of the magnitude of these threats yourself. We captured them in the committee's cyber threat snapshot.
You can see a little bit of that here. Whether we're dealing with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, or criminal actors, one thing is clear, our vulnerabilities span from our heartland's hardware to our city's software. Sometimes we're dealing with targeted attacks like ransomware, and sometimes our vulnerabilities stem from poor cyber hygiene or economic models that do not prioritize cybersecurity.
But whatever the case, we need to do better, and we need to do better now. Our nation's security and prosperity depend upon a resilient cyber posture, something that can only be assured by adequately preparing our pipeline of cyber professionals. Over the years, there have been many initiatives to address the cyber workforce gap. Our witnesses here today have been at the forefront of some of those efforts. We applaud those efforts and hope they'll continue. However, it's clear we need a new It's clear we need a new but complimentary approach. One that brings together the public and private sectors to fill gaps at all levels of government and industry. One that creates quick pathways for individuals who want to pivot in their careers without having to complete a four-year degree. One that provides hands-on experiences for cyber professionals in training and then supports them throughout their careers. One that cultivates a sense of community and service to the country. like the ROTC program, one that's accessible to all Americans, and one that will finally change the decades long narrative around the cyber workforce gap. I believe that bill is my bill, the Cyber Pivot Act, It directly addresses all of these issues in a meaningful way, and that's why I reintroduced my bill today alongside representatives Guest, Jimenez, Higgins, Strong, Biggs, Evans, Molinar, Ezell, and Rogers. We've received significant support for the bill, including the American Association of Community Colleges. And I want to thank our stakeholders and would like to submit the following statements for the record. Advocacy Blueprints, Business Software Alliance, Cyber Innovation Centers and their academic initiative, Cyber.org, Dark Trace, Forescout Technologies, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Information Technology Industry Council, the Internet Security Alliance, ISC2, R Squared, Avanti, the McCrary Institute, Microsoft, National Rural Electric Corp Association, Palo Alto Networks, Periton,
the R Street Institute, Sentinel One, Special Competitive Studies, the US Chamber of Commerce, and without objection, so ordered. It's time to sign the Cyber Pivot Act into law. And I look forward to working across the aisle to ensure that we can do so in a bipartisan manner. Last year, we held a full committee hearing on the cybersecurity workforce gap with government witnesses. Today, we will examine the perspective of the private sector. Thank you to our expert panel for joining us. Your diverse experiences in academia, critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and nonprofits will give us a holistic understanding of the complexities we face in bolstering our cyber workforce and the strategies we must consider for reducing the workforce gap once and for all. I look forward to this very important discussion. I now recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, our ranking member, Mr. Thompson, for his opening statement. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I'd like to thank our witnesses for agreeing to testify today.
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