As the Pentagon seeks to vastly expand its cyber warfare efforts, experts and hackers warn that hackers who have the skills to wage this war are not a good fit for America’s straight-laced military culture. In short, potential soldiers in cyber warfare break the military mold.
The Defense Department’s Cyber Command plans to add up to 4,900 workers in the coming years. But to fill these positions, the Pentagon will have to tap into an odd recruiting pool: people known more for their distrust of authority and for their belief in open information than their commitment to protecting the country, according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Recruiting is a “hard thing to do, given the career paths of hackers and the military,” Harrison said. “The typical military career path, in which it takes years to advance, isn’t going to seem very attractive to the hacker. In the software world, you can be CEO of a billion dollar company when you’re in your twenties.”
“There are a lot of things about military culture that may not be attractive to these real hacker types,” Harrison added.
In fact, a group of hackers has recently made the U.S. government one of its targets. As revenge for the suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who was facing up to 30 years in prison for illegally downloading academic papers, the powerful hackers group Anonymous last week threatened to attack the Justice Department’s network.
Harrison said that the fast-paced nature of cyber warfare – hackers constantly need to find new ways to beat security, making techniques that work today useless in a matter of months – would only complicate recruitment efforts.
“You constantly need to be recruiting 22 year olds,” he said. “If you’re in your 30s you’re too old.”