Trump’s cyber reskilling initiative attracts 1,500 workers
An initiative set up by Trump’s administration that allows federal workers to apply to the ‘Cyber Reskilling Academy’ has received over 1,500 applications.
Most of the applicants are lower-level feds, and have conducted aptitude assessments to get through to the final 25-person cohort starting April 15th.
The initiative has been created to fill the cyber security skills gap in the US, with the first 25 employees set to service as a proof of concept for the reskilling program.
You can read more here.
Is AI the answer to the cyber skill shortage?
A recent survey has shown acceptance in the industry to move towards AI in an attempt to solve the cyber labour shortage.
Most respondents concluded that AI is best for increasing the speed of analysing threats, replacing the need for human labour with mundane cyber jobs.
With cloud computing offering affordable computational power to organisations of all size, it is thought that AI-based products and services will no longer be prohibitively expensive.
However, there are concerns about the use of AI in cyber security. For example, IT experts explain that AI “learns biases” meaning that savvy cybercriminals would be able to eventually manipulate AI defences.
You can read more here.
UK Foreign Secretary outlines 4 steps to cyber deterrence
The UK’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, spoke at Glasgow University this week about the challenges presented by the advance of new technology.
He stated how, in the cyber age, democracy is threatened by nothing more than a laptop or computer. The interference of Russian hackers in recent political events has led to the democratic process being “seriously undermined”.
As one of the leading cyber powers, Hunt concludes that the UK’s investment and changes in law is not enough; we need a strategy to deter hostile states from intervening in democracies.
Hunt concluded the speech by explaining the 4 principles of cyber deterrence: seeking the state or actor behind any malign cyber activity, responding to perpetrators (such as publicly shaming them), prosecuting cybercriminals and working with our allies to consider further steps.
You can read more here.
Quick Fire Updates
Huawei opens cyber security transparency centre: in Brussels, to offer government agencies, technical experts, industry associations and standards organisations a platform to communicate and balance out security. Read more here.
Whitefly espionage group behind Singapore cyber-attack: It has been uncovered that Singapore’s worst cyber-attack (the theft of 1.5 million people’s personal information from a health database) was the work of Whitefly. Read more here.
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If you have any questions about this week’s roundup, or want to understand how you can improve your cybersecurity strategy, get in touch with IRM.