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Training Next Gen Army Brass on IT Security

September 22, 2009

Interview with Lt. Col. Gregory Conti of West Point

Army Lt. Col. Gregory Conti is a man on a mission, not only to educate the next generation of Army officers on cybersecurity, but to change the culture of the military to put cybersecurity on the same footing as an Air Force pilot, a Navy ship officer or an Army combat leader in career advancement.

In an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com, Conti, an academy professor of computer science at West Point who coordinates the United States Military Academy's cyber warfare curiccula, discusses the:

Importance of cybersecurity training at the academy, not just to computer science majors, but to all cadets;

Differences between cybersecurity and cyber warfare; and

Idea of creating a fourth military branch dedicated to defending the nation's IT assets.

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.

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