Culture War: Making Cyber Career Military Friendly

A few weeks back, a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point asked Army Lt. Col. Gregory Conti which service branch he should join to specialize in cyberwarfare. Conti, an academy computer science professor and head of its Cyberwarfare Research Center, paused and realized he couldn't answer the cadet's question. "There isn't one," he said.

"Cyberwarfare entirely new thing, and it's very different than being a pilot in the Air Force or having a ship with weapons on it or charging up a hill, so culturally, there's a big gap there," Conti said in an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com (transcript below). "My instinct tells me that one potential solution would be to create a new service, one where technical expertise is valued."

Creating a separate, cyberwarfare branch is highly unlikely, at least anytime soon, so Conti and other computer science faculty members teaching at West Point do what they can, creating a curriculum that requires all cadets to take at least two cybersecurity courses and imbeds cybersecurity into nearly every computer science course the academy offers.

In an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com, Conti discusses the:

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Conti earned a bachelor degree in computer science at West Point in 1989, a year before laptops became standard issue to all cadets. Since then, Conti has earned a master and doctorate in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and George Institute of Technology, respectively. He also has written two books on cybersecurity, Googling Security (Addison Wesley, November 2008) and Security Data Visualization (No Starch Press, September 2007) as well as co-authoring with Army Col. Col John "Buck" Surdu an article proposing a fourth, coequal military branch focused on cybersecurity.

Eric Chabrow, GovInfoSecurity.com managing editor, interviewed Conti.

ERIC CHABROW: I see you received a bachelor of science degree in computer science from West Point 20 years ago. What was taught about IT security and IT assurance at West Point in the '80s and how has that curriculum evolved since then?

GREGORY CONTI: It evolved significantly. I graduated in 1989. For the class of 1990 to present, every cadet has been issued a computer. Starting with the classes after me, ironically, each student was issued a computer and the computer in the barracks and the dorms basically were wired up and connected to the Internet in the mid-'90s. The cadets have been immersed in online lifestyle pretty early on, which helps in as we try and teach them computer security.

When I went through the program from '86 to '89, this isn't unique to West Point, the security wasn't very well developed in discipline. We covered it a little bit in our operating system classes, talking about ways people could crack passwords and things, but it was very rudimentary. Across the country, including at West Point, the computer science programs have begun to incorporate more and more computer security. It touches basically every aspect of computer science and information technology. That is one thing we've done here. We've worked very hard to find the right computer security topics to imbed - hopefully, seamlessly - into essentially every course that we offer. We have two courses that are mandatory; every cadet has to take two courses. One as a freshman, a plebe, and one as a junior, a cow, and each one of those includes cyberwarfare materials. It's woefully shallow, a few lessons in each course, but every cadet, every graduating lieutenant when they leave the academy and join full-time the army as a lieutenant they've had exposure to the material.

CHABROW: You touched on what was my next question, what is the role that cyberwarfare education plays in preparing the latest generation of officers in the U.S. Army, and if you can discuss maybe some of the philosophies behind even those who aren't majoring in computer science and the importance of knowing something about that.