DoD hosts international cybersecurity exchange

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 – A senior Defense Department official invited Indonesian government officials, academics and entrepreneurs to a discussion on how the Pentagon is aligning its cyber workforce strategy with the demands of a rapidly evolving domain.

Patrick Johnson, director of the U.S. Department of Defense Chief Information Officer’s Workforce Innovation Directorate, provided a comprehensive overview of the Pentagon’s cyber workforce framework and his vision for recruiting and retaining top talent to meet the demands of the future.

The exchange took place as part of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), which aims to develop lasting relationships between emerging foreign leaders and their counterparts in the United States. Next week, DOD CIO representatives will host a group from Japan that is in the U.S. to discuss ways to improve cybersecurity in Japan.

“In the cyber arena, humans are the weapons system,” Johnson said, underscoring the critical importance of securing the global networks that permeate daily life in both the public and private sectors.

He said the nation’s defenders must increasingly consider both the kinetic and non-kinetic effects that shape the modern battlefield. For example, he noted, a malicious cyber actor could single-handedly take out the world’s most advanced fighter jet without firing a single shot.

In 2023, DOD published its strategy to focus the department’s efforts on identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining a data-savvy, technology-enabled cyber workforce to ensure the U.S. maintains its warfighting edge.

The department has also established a framework to shape the cyber workforce through staff qualification, academic outreach and professional development, and has implemented the Cyber ​​Excepted Service, which uses enhanced recruitment and retention powers.

But the challenges posed by the rapidly changing cyber domain are not unique to the Ministry of Defence, as this week’s discussion demonstrated.

The exchange provided participants with an opportunity to discuss the common challenges facing the public and private sectors in both the US and Indonesia.

Participants discussed the bureaucratic hurdles common in both countries that public sector recruiters face, often with lengthy application procedures and higher salaries offered by private employers.

Also discussed were the changing standards by which the qualifications of candidates for cyber jobs are measured.

Al Akbar Rahmadillah, founder of Sobat Cyber ​​​​Indonesia, stressed the need to leverage practical qualifications gained through informal, hands-on training.

That sentiment is not unique to the Indonesian private sector. Johnson said DOD is increasingly looking for performance-based qualifications, rather than formal education.

Participants also indicated that the competition created by Indonesia’s large population of young professionals has an impact on the recruitment of cyber talent.

It is precisely this back-and-forth exchange that is the level of dialogue that the IVLP aims to promote.

Since 1940, the IVLP has hosted more than 225,000 participants for exchanges on topics ranging from youth and women’s leadership to promoting cybersecurity and combating transnational crime.

Alfian Linux, CEO of Xtend Indonesia, a private sector technology company, said his experience participating has been invaluable.

“Everyone knows that the giant companies and the technology for that came from the United States,” he said, adding that he hopes the IVLP talks will open doors for Indonesian companies to collaborate effectively with American companies.

But Johnson, who hosted an IVLP cohort from Iraq as part of the program, said the U.S. also benefits greatly from the exchange.

“There is a global talent shortage in cyber,” he said, adding that every country has an information technology infrastructure that needs to be defended.

According to Johnson, it is the job of countries to learn from each other to meet pressing challenges.

“I think we need to take it seriously (and) take that opportunity to talk to smart people from outside our own little sphere,” he said. “The world has a lot to offer.”

By Joseph Clark, DOD News