The Public Eye with Eric Chabrow

Cybersecurity Bowl: Army-Navy

Cybersecurity Bowl: Army-Navy

If cybersecurity education were a football game, say Army-Navy, the midshipmen would find themselves with their backs against the end zone, deep in their own territory, with a bulkier defense of cadets ready to blitz the quarterback.

Navy is playing catch up against the Army in educating its students in cybersecurity.

The head of the Naval Academy announced this past week that Annapolis is considering requiring all students be required to take at least one cybersecurity course before they graduate and be commissioned as Navy ensigns or Marine second lieutenants (I know, graduates can enter the other services). West Point already requires its students to take two cybersecurity courses.

Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler told the school's Board of Visitors that cyberspace will be the next battleground. Why now, after the other service academies have institute cybersecurity programs? Fowler said that the Academy's customers - the Navy and Marine Corps - had not made cybersecurity as big a deal as did the other service branches.

West Point integrates cybersecurity into nearly every computer science course it gives, besides requiring all cadets to take at least two cybersecurity courses. Here's Lt. Col. Gregory Conti, who served as a West Point computer science professor and head of its Cyberwarfare Research Center, from a September interview with GovInfoSecurity.com:

"We've worked very hard to find the right computer security topics to imbed - hopefully, seamlessly - into essentially every (computer science) 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.

Admittedly, my analogy to a football game - written the day before the annual Army-Navy game - is forced. Cybersecurity is no contest, and if it were, it's one we cannot afford to lose. If there is a winner here, it's our military, with its leaders recognizing the importance of educating its future officer corps in a critical component of 21st century warfare.



About the Author

Eric Chabrow

Eric Chabrow

Retired Executive Editor, GovInfoSecurity

Chabrow, who retired at the end of 2017, hosted and produced the semi-weekly podcast ISMG Security Report and oversaw ISMG's GovInfoSecurity and InfoRiskToday. He's a veteran multimedia journalist who has covered information technology, government and business.




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