Tech News

National Strategy to Expand US Cyber Workforce Announced

The new National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES) (https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/preparing-our-country-for-a-cyber-future/) announced by the Biden administration aims to address both immediate and long-term cyber workforce needs.

The main objectives of the initiative are to:

• Equip every American with foundational cyber skills – Enable everyone to enjoy the full benefits of our interconnected society.
• Transform cyber education – Address the immediate demand for a skilled cyber workforce and prepare learners to meet the future needs of a dynamic technological environment.
• Expand and enhance the national cyber workforce – Increase access to cyber jobs for all Americans, including underserved and underrepresented groups.
• Strengthen the federal cyber workforce – Communicate the benefits of careers in public service amongst both job seekers and current employees and lower the barriers associated with hiring and onboarding.

In terms of collaboration, several agencies have announced their commitment to NCWES efforts. For example:

• The NSF will invest $24 million in CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (https://sfs.opm.gov/) awards over the next four years.
• NIST will award up to $3.6 million for Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate (RAMPS) cybersecurity education and workforce development projects.
• The VA announced a Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Program for Veterans, a two-year developmental program to provide hands-on learning and development experience for cybersecurity apprentices.
• SANS (https://www.sans.org/) and the National Cyber Scholarship Foundation (NCSF) have expanded their partnership for CyberStart America (https://www.cyberstartamerica.org/) and Cyber FastTrack (https://www.cyber-fasttrack.org/) programs to inspire high school and college students across the United States to develop foundational cyber skills.

"Filling the hundreds of thousands of cyber job vacancies across our nation is a national security imperative," the fact sheet states (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/31/fact-sheet-biden).

SEC Adopts New Rules for Disclosure of Cybersecurity Incidents

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted new rules (https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-139) for disclosure of cybersecurity incidents and risk management by publicly traded companies.

Under the new requirements, registrants must:

• Disclose any cybersecurity incident that they "determine to be material and to describe the material aspects of the incident's nature, scope, and timing" as well as the incident's material impact within four days.
• Annually disclose their processes, if any, "for assessing, identifying, and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats."
• Annually describe the "board of directors' oversight of risks from cybersecurity threats and management's role and expertise in assessing and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats."

The SEC will also require foreign private issuers to make comparable disclosures. The rules "will benefit investors, companies, and the markets connecting them," says SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

Canonical Announces Real-Time Ubuntu for Intel Core

Canonical and Intel have joined forces to deliver real-time Ubuntu for industrial systems, according to a recent announcement (https://ubuntu.com/blog/real-time-industrial-systems). "The solution enables enterprises to harness the power of optimized Linux on Intel silicon for a wide range of use cases, from telco workloads to life-saving medical equipment, and automation systems for the factory floor," the announcement says.

The solution is now generally available on Intel Core processors and supports Intel Time Coordinated Computing (TCC) and IEEE 802.1 Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) (https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/).

TSN primarily focuses on the network space, explains Edoardo Barbieri (https://ubuntu.com/blog/real-time-industrial-systems), ensuring that time-sensitive applications and workloads receive the necessary processing and network priorities. "With the addition of TCC and TSN, enterprises can achieve enhanced performance, time synchronization, and temporal isolation at the silicon layer," he says.