Poor pay, invasive hiring process sees over a third of posts
unfilled.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is struggling to hire
computer scientists, according to a Department of Justice audit of the feeb's
attempts to implement its Next Generation Cyber Initiative.
A 34-page audit report
(PDF) from the DoJ notes that, while making considerable progress, the
FBI has "encountered challenges in attracting external participants to its
established Cyber Task Forces".
Noting that the FBI has not fully met its goals for the
initiative, the DoJ report's foremost complaint is that the feeb's
international public-private alliance – known as the National Cyber
Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF) – does
not have a process to measure the timeliness of information sharing among
members.
The NCIJTF recently made headlines when, alongside its
international colleagues, it took
down the cybercrime forum Darkode. For a few days,
anyway.
The audit also bemoaned how hiring and retaining qualified
white hats remained a challenge for the FBI, especially when competing
private-sector entities pay more and have less invasive recruitment processes.
The FBI reportedly did not hire 52 of the 134 computer
scientists for which it was authorised, meaning 38 per cent of the workforce it
requires (as per budget) is simply not there.
This additionally means that five of the FBI's 56 field
offices do not have even a single computer scientist assigned to their Cyber
Task Force.
Back in 2011, the Office of the Inspector General gave the
FBI a thorough scolding over its inability to address America's cyber-intrusion
threat, for which it has become the responsible national body. The Next
Generation Cyber Initiative was launched in response, essentially as a platform
for funding increases in the face of a swelling number of data breaches and
cyber-attacks in recent years.
This is not the first mention of the FBI's difficulties in
recruiting infosec professionals. Last year, the feeb's director James Comey
said the company was re-examining its drugs policy as too
many applicants seemed to be enjoying a doobie en route to interview.
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Font: 3 Aug 2015 at 08:02, Alexander
J Martin
