http://www.cfr.org/cybersecurity/defending-open-global-secure-resilient-internet/p30836

“Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet”, the June publication of an independent task force organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, is a compelling account of the current status of national and international policy within the field of Cyber Security.  The report spends a significant amount of time addressing the many urgent risks that the open internet currently faces. Chief among them is fragmentation into state-controlled intranets through censorship and firewalls as well as the proliferation in recent years of military- and government-designed cyber weapons alongside new postures towards cyber warfare as a form of state conflict.

Many of the recommendations are sound, such as pursuing more focused Cyber Security policies and laws that avoid the Intellectual Property focus which has led to the failure of a number of previous legislative efforts. Some other stances—such as discouraging aggressive export controls on software and hardware that can be used to monitor and stifle civic dissent online—seem less defensible. This is especially salient given the focus on the risks and costs of a more divided and censored global internet.

On the policy side a number of concerns are voiced about the future trajectory of the internet and who will ultimately be responsible for regulating it. In the debate between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the nascent International Telecommunications Union (ITU), this report comes down squarely on the side of ICANN and views the movement through the United Nations and the ITU to post ground rules on the internet as an attempt by authoritarian states to limit dissent.

The report is not all doom and gloom, however. One bright spot for potential job seekers is that “80 percent of the federal Cyber Security workforce is over 40 years old.” Impending retirements in the field lead the report to cite estimates that there will be “future shortfalls at between twenty and forty thousand people for many years out”. Cyber Security, at least, remains a seller’s market for professionals, who can expect stiff competition for their services.

by Dan Gifford, Media Manager/Graduate Research Assistant – MCySec