As we know and as we have touched on many times as a class, cyber security is a fast-paced and constantly evolving and changing industry. Our CIKR is almost completely entwined within it, and that means that we will always need people to learn the cyber skills necessary to protect and defend CIKR. Something I have seen increase over the last few years, and something I hope to push for and be a part of in the future, is an increase in basic cyber training that is available for everyone and anyone, especially youth. Of course with the increase in STEM programs, this is being made more of a reality which is fantastic. There are also some intelligence agencies who are beginning to hold summer cyber camps for elementary through college-aged students which is also great. With cyber classes being made available to more and more students, and the number of open cyber jobs increasing, many of these kids have a pretty secure future- however that is a bit of a way from now in most cases.

The issue is currently we have a lot of cyber job vacancies, to include within various CIKR-related positions. Another issue is training for the rest of the workforce on best cyber practices in order to protect the systems they use and have access to. Most standard “Internet safety” training is a brief slideshow you click through, answer a small quiz every few sections or so, and then you’re done with it and most likely brain dump it when you close it out. DHS offers its own cyber security training for businesses to give to their employees, though I am under the impression it is not incredibly well known. I would love to be able to revamp the awareness programs and get these trainings and other opportunities seen and utilized so that more businesses can improve and be more aware of best cyber security practices. Many private entities are involved in CIKR and the more we can get actively engaged in these programs and really take something home from it, the better.