Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on Nov. 6, 2014.
Philip Reitinger is the president of VisionSpear LLC and former deputy undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security.
There is a good news, bad news story in cybersecurity.
The good news: On August 19 Vice President Biden welcomed a team of students from the University of Central Florida to the Indian Treaty Room at the White House (the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to be precise), to recognize them for winning the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. That is a great thing: the White House should be commended for taking a significant step to raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity skills, and to make being a geek even more cool.
Now the bad news, in the form of a question: Did you know about it? There was local press in Florida, Forbes included this in a story in October (read it here), and I expect that there were more stories, but compare their number to those concerning the USIS breach that became public a bit earlier or other breaches around that time. It is hard to hear the progress above the din of sensationalism.
Of course, controversy makes a better story than success. And it is also true that as a country we need to understand the cyber defenders are behind in the attackers in their continual contest. Online, offense wins. But inviting some student defenders to the White House is an important story — one not sufficiently recognized.
As the Forbes article points out, cyber competitions are booming. Along with the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition there are the Cyber Patriot program for high school and middle school students, the US Cyber Challenge and Cyber Aces for students in many age groups and veterans, and even more competitions including the capture-the-flag exercises at security conferences. DHS has its Cyber Competition Project. These are great programs, and should be an even more visible part of our national effort to address the critical cybersecurity threats we face. While we work to improve our defensive technology and practices, we have to have more skilled people to respond to threats. This requires resources and public relations to generate interest among students and the public.
So let’s all applaud the university’s “Knights in Cyber Armor.” Let’s also applaud the winners of other cyber competitions. You are addressing a national need, and your role is and will be more important to the country than many recognize.
Perhaps next year even more winners can be invited to the White House. And if the president himself can be available and welcome the teams as well, just like he might the champions of sports leagues, that would be a fine, fine thing.
Cyber competition yields a success story
