The Department of Homeland Security has a huge cybersecurity mission, charged with securing the .gov and .mil domains, as well as coordinating the defense of private-sector networks. Staffing to meet that mission is of critical importance and the current dearth of in-house expertise and rigors of the federal hiring system are making it that much harder.
To help move the process along, the Office of Personnel Management granted DHS authority to hire 1,000 cyber professionals between now and June 30, 2016.
The hiring authority strips out many of the procedures that slow the process, enabling DHS to quickly get new personnel onboarded and working.
According to a notice posted on the Federal Register on Nov. 10, the approved positions include roles in:
Cyber risk and strategic analysis, incident handling and malware/vulnerability analysis, program management, distributed control systems security, cyber incident response, cyber exercise facilitation and management, cyber vulnerability detection and assessment, network and systems engineering, enterprise architecture, intelligence analysis, investigation, investigative analysis and cyber-related infrastructure interdependency analysis.
For the most part, OPM has yet to establish the qualifications for these positions, adding to the need for this special hiring authority.
Those appointed to fill these positions will come in at GS levels nine through 15.
