New Grad Looking For a Job? Pentagon Contractors Post Openings For Black-Hat Hackers

[swag]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/15/new-grad-looking-for-a-job-pentagon-contractors-post-openings-for-black-hat-hackers-2/

By Andy Greenberg

. . .

Defense contractor giant Raytheon is looking for a “Unix Attack developer.” TeleCommunications Systems wants a “Windows Attack/Exploit Developer.” NSA contractor SAIC seeks a “Red Team Developer.” All three of those companies’ job descriptions include the phrase: “analyzing software for vulnerabilities as well as development of exploit code.”

Hypponen says the job searches he began out of curiosity show a marked uptick in these self-described offensive hacker jobs for U.S. government contractors. “I think this is new,” he says. “The arms race has started, and this proves it. It’s a clear sign of the demand to stockpile cyber weapons and expand the operations underway.”

Despite the creation of a U.S. Cyber Command under NSA head General Keith Alexander in 2009, the U.S. government and military has remained guarded about its role as an attacker rather than a mere defender in digital military operations. Even after confirmation that the ultra-sophisticated Stuxnet malware was created by U.S. and Israeli agents and strong evidence that the Flame spyware was developed by the same coders, no government source has officially acknowledged targeting foreign countries’ militaries or civilians with malicious code.

But rocketing demand and a lagging supply of skilled hackers is boosting salaries and driving the defense industry’s war for talent into the open, says Alan Paller, the director of research at the cybersecurity education-focused SANS Institute. He cites SANS’ statistics that highly skilled cybersecurity staffers were paid as much as $175,000 in 2011, up 25 to 30 percent from two years before, and points to comments from the Booz Allen Hamilton executive Patrick Gorman to Bloomberg last year that the company tries to hire 1,000 cybersecurity experts a year, and struggles to find them.

. . .

[pnwmom]

1. Cybersecurity has always required experts in attacking as well as defending

because the idea is to find the weak points in your system before the enemy does.

So this doesn't necessarily mean what the OP is implying -- that we will be increasing the use of these skills offensively. This might be part of an overall defense strategy, necessitated by an increase in the attacks on U.S. systems.

[bongbong]

2. Another MIC black hole for money to disappear into

In my experience, black-hat hackers are pretty lazy & pretty poor coders.

I'm sure they'll make great money-vacuums for taxpayer bucks.