Posted on Oct 1, 2013
Cybersecurity in the Army: How to Identify, Train, and Retain Future Cybersecurity Warriors
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<p>Recently I had a conversation with a Signal co-worker concerning the military's cybersecurity strategy and how to get a foot in the door in the cyber career field. He was very interested in becoming a hacker and wanted to learn what kind of training he should focus on to stand out from the crowd. After being turned down for a reclass into a cybersecurity job he is strongly considering an ETS. This conversation epitomized to me what I think is a failure in our current plans in developing an elite cyber force.</p><p> </p><p>First, I think there exists a pop culture definition of hacking that creates critical misconceptions in any conversation about the subject. This misconception exists at all levels, often even amongst those that work in the field.</p><p> </p><p>No one can teach you to hack. It is not a skill that can be learned by rote and offered up on the platter of military training. Running a script or a program is not hacking. Typing a command into a bash shell is not hacking. Even programming a Remote Access Tool is not hacking! A hacker is simply a person that understands his/her targets' chosen technologies better than they do and can think in a critical, outside the box fashion. Skilled hackers can identify and exploit the mental scotomas of their victims, using their oversights as pivot points to open up a vast chess board with an unlimited field of movement.</p><p> </p><p>If you want to be a hacker you must have strong foundations in computers from the hardware to the bare bones of network technologies. Reading and digesting RFCs on various TCP/IP packets and then getting excited when you see a way to use that packet in a way no one intended is a step in the right direction. A hacker sees a program crash or a computer blue screen and wonders if its reproducible or causes buffer overflows. A hacker must be a Cisco Engineer, a Microsoft subject matter expert, a Linux guru, and a Python, Bash, PowerShell, Ruby, Java, Assembler fool. In summary, we need technologists that are passionate about IT, motivated to learn new technologies, and subject matter experts in multiple domains.</p><p> </p><p>1. How do you identify soldiers with exceptional technology skills and the aptitude to apply those skills to an asymetric task such as hacking?</p><p> </p><p>2. What kind of training should be used to enhance the skills of selected soldiers and prepare them for their missions?</p><p> </p><p>3. How do you retain those soldiers after you have invested considerable time and energy into their training?</p>
Cybersecurity
Computer Network Operations
Information Assurance
Cyber
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 13
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1. I disagree, I believe hackers can be taught with the right tools...the first for identification is passionate for technology and how often do they stay updated and what is their capacity of understanding of a technology. I believe hacking is both experience and education but more experience to help build the skillset and understanding. I believe hacking is about exploring and understanding how a system works if you don't receive the right education as well 2. I'd look at the basics of understanding security and main programming lingo mainly UNIX, Linux, Dos and Python and basically set up a versus team to hack each others computer in a local server based on a firewall built by themselves which helps increase their cyber defense skills while learning to attack 3. Retaining them is basically providing them missions in relation to their job or skillset...this is where talent management comes in...for example the person who's good at building firewalls continue to train him or her up to further ithe skill while training up on the others maybe as STt so you build your own experts to train each other. That's what I would do.
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I agree hacking is never a skill learned it's understanding the working of the computer signal and that only happens through lots of self taught readings and learnings with practical applications...people don't hack for the sake of hacking...although some people do...most do it to learn and understand the workings of the Internet environment and ability to use the signals and what's available to use...kinda like sports you don't get better unless you practice and learn other methods to succeed
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So I know this is an old question, but after reading some of the comments I feel the need to respond. The term hacker has become a misplaced term among most of society. Hackers come in many forms. In the IT field a Hacker is a person who can look at an error or a code and find a way to exploit its mistakes, whether someone forgot a ; or an entire line all together that allows the attacker to execute malicious code. However, not all code is malicious and not all hackers are bad.
Many of the common hackers your hear about today are great at social engineering and being a script kiddie. It doesn't take much for someone to start up kali linux, run the setoolkit and exploit someone because they don't know how to NOT open an e-mail or click a link.
I have been told by many that I am an exception to the IT world. I am not an elite hacker by any means. But, I make it my mission to no everything there is to know about Cyber and IT in general. I consider myself for the time being an IT Specialist. I study linux, mac, windows, cisco, novell, python scripting, and just about all fields of IT. I have the inate ability to absorb anything I am taught when it comes to computers. However, not all people can. I love to analyze code, and flaws, and websites. I love learning how exploits work, and their design. Rootkits and scripts, just about anything in the cyber realm i make it my mission to learn.
Though the one thing that can set you apart from everyone else, is not just the knowledge or the know-how to be a "Hacker" but the ability to learn different languages as well. A lot of what we in the US are attacked with contain foreign languages like Russian, Chinese, etc. So to be a true expert Hacker you must not only know your ways in and out of a system covertly, but you must also be able to analyze the exploit that has just come across your system in a foreign language.
Many of the common hackers your hear about today are great at social engineering and being a script kiddie. It doesn't take much for someone to start up kali linux, run the setoolkit and exploit someone because they don't know how to NOT open an e-mail or click a link.
I have been told by many that I am an exception to the IT world. I am not an elite hacker by any means. But, I make it my mission to no everything there is to know about Cyber and IT in general. I consider myself for the time being an IT Specialist. I study linux, mac, windows, cisco, novell, python scripting, and just about all fields of IT. I have the inate ability to absorb anything I am taught when it comes to computers. However, not all people can. I love to analyze code, and flaws, and websites. I love learning how exploits work, and their design. Rootkits and scripts, just about anything in the cyber realm i make it my mission to learn.
Though the one thing that can set you apart from everyone else, is not just the knowledge or the know-how to be a "Hacker" but the ability to learn different languages as well. A lot of what we in the US are attacked with contain foreign languages like Russian, Chinese, etc. So to be a true expert Hacker you must not only know your ways in and out of a system covertly, but you must also be able to analyze the exploit that has just come across your system in a foreign language.
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