Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Education & Awareness (CE&A) Branch was established under National Security Presidential Directive–54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive–23, which launched the 2008 Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. There is no appropriations language that references CE&A; it is funded through the Infrastructure Protection and Information Security appropriation under the National Protection and Programs Directorate.
The Department of Homeland Security’s CE&A works with universities to attract top talent through competitive scholarship, fellowship, and internship programs. The agency certifies more than 125 institutions nationwide as National Centers for Academic Excellence to teach students valuable technical skills in various disciplines of Information Assurance. The CE&A prepares and makes available computer and information security lesson plans. At the K–12 level, the Department has partnered with USA Today to provide lesson plans about the importance of prevention of computer and digital information crimes at home and in the classroom.
The agency initiated the IT Security Essential Body of Knowledge (EBK). The National Cybersecurity Division developed the EBK to establish a national baseline of the essential knowledge and skills that IT security practitioners in the public and private sector should have to perform specific roles and responsibilities. The challenge for computer and information security coordination and development is no single agreed upon voluntary taxonomy nor definitions to rely upon when categorizing or classifying computer or information security jobs.
The fields of computer and information security study is within the field of information assurance. The information assurance, cybersecurity and computer security workforce encompasses a variety of context, roles, and occupations and is too broad and diverse to be treated as a single occupation or profession. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics occupations, which include computer and information security experts and professionals, are expected to grow by 17 percent by the year 2018 compared to 9.8 percent for other jobs.
The Federal Government is experiencing a shortage of qualified professionals with expertise in computer and information security. Insufficiently trained, educated, or supervised Federal computer workers can reduce the Nation’s ability to secure computer networks from cyber attacks or incidents. The computing and information security workforce encompasses a variety of context, roles, and occupations and is too broad an diverse to be treated as a single occupation or profession.
Computing and information security is not solely a technical endeavor, and thus encompasses a wide range of backgrounds and skills that will be needed in an effective national computing and information security workforce. The route toward professionalization of a field of study can be slow and difficult, and not all portions of a field can or should be professionalized at the same time. It is essential, just as it is for other disciplines like medicine and the law, that academics, employers, and government share a common language to identify, train, educate, and employ computer and information security professionals.
The secure management of digital sensitive information collected maintained or transmitted by Federal Government agencies, including taxpayer data, Social Security records, medical records, intellectual property, proprietary business information, and sensitive Government data vital to national security and national defense requires an educated and well-trained, as well as supervised, Federal workforce. It is in the Nation’s interest to promote opportunities for science and technology education and employment as a means of addressing the need to fill computer and information security jobs within the Federal Government.
The Department of Homeland Security’s role is to lead, champion, and sustain the development of a national information assurance, cybersecurity and computer security workforce, as well as to educate the citizenry. Developing, implementing, and articulating programs that protect against and respond to computer and information security threats and hazards to the Homeland’s security. The Department of Homeland Security must create an agile, diverse workforce and digital citizenry that are capable of sustaining a safe, secure, resilient computer and information security space, driven by a dynamic Department organization at the forefront of cross-sector computer and information security workforce development.