NSA Teams Up With Colleges to Train Students for Secret Cyber-Ops Jobs

 

 

NSA Teams Up With Colleges to Train Students for Secret Cyber-Ops Jobs

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/nsa-college-students/

 

    By Kim Zetter

   

 

The National Security Agency is partnering with select universities to train

students in cyber operations for intelligence, military and law enforcement

jobs, work that will remain secret to all but a select group of students and

faculty who pass clearance requirements, according to Reuters.

 

The cyber-operations curriculum is part of the Obama administration's

national initiative to improve cybersecurity through education, and is

designed to prepare students for jobs with the U.S. Cyber Command, the NSA's

signals intelligence operations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and

other law enforcement agencies that investigate cyber crimes.

 

The U.S. Cyber Command's job is, in part, to support the military in

offensive cyber operations against enemy networks, suggesting the students

would be trained in the methods of hackers.

 

"We're trying to create more of these, and yes they have to know some of the

things that hackers know, they have to know a lot of other things too, which

is why you really want a good university to create these people for you,"

Neal Ziring, technical director at the NSA's Information Assurance

Directorate, told Reuters.

 

But another NSA official was quick to add that the NSA wasn't looking to

teach students illegal hacking techniques.

 

"We are not asking them to teach kids how to break into systems, we're not

asking them to teach that. And a lot of them have said they wouldn't teach

that," said Steven LaFountain, a senior NSA official who guides academic

programs told Reuters. "We're just asking them to teach the hardcore

fundamental science that we need students to have when they come to work

here."

 

Although 20 universities applied to participate in the program, only four

were selected so far: Dakota State University, Naval Postgraduate School,

Northeastern University and University of Tulsa.

 

Schools applying for the program had to meet 10 criteria, among them was a

requirement that they teach courses in reverse engineering.

 

Once the students have the basic knowledge needed, they will be eligible to

receive training to work in classified jobs with the NSA.

 

"In our operational developmental organization, we would spend up to 12

months to give them the secret sauce, the tradecraft, the really deep

technical training so that they could make themselves useful in doing what

we need them to do, and that's with that technical underpinning," Captain

Jill Newton, who leads NSA's cyber training and education programs, told

Reuters.

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Exclusive: Spy agency seeks cyber-ops curriculum

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/22/us-usa-intelligence-education-idUS

BRE84L12T20120522?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

 

By Tabassum Zakaria

 

FORT MEADE, Maryland | Tue May 22, 2012 4:42pm EDT

 

(Reuters) - The National Security Agency is trying to expand U.S. cyber

expertise needed for secret intelligence operations against adversaries on

computer networks through a new cyber-ops program at selected universities.

 

The cyber-ops curriculum is geared to providing the basic education for jobs

in intelligence, military and law enforcement that are so secret they will

only be revealed to some students and faculty, who need to pass security

clearance requirements, during special summer seminars offered by NSA.

 

It is not easy to find the right people for cyber operations because the

slice of the hacker community that would make a quality cyber operator

inside the government is only a sliver.

 

The "quality cyber operators" the NSA is looking for are few and far

between, says Neal Ziring, technical director at the agency's Information

Assurance Directorate.

 

"We're trying to create more of these, and yes they have to know some of the

things that hackers know, they have to know a lot of other things too, which

is why you really want a good university to create these people for you,"

Ziring told Reuters in an interview at NSA's headquarters in Maryland.

 

NSA has two main missions: to protect U.S. government computer networks and

to collect foreign intelligence through electronic means like satellites and

decode it.

 

Of 20 universities that applied, only four received this week the new

designation of Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations: Dakota

State University, Naval Postgraduate School, Northeastern University and

University of Tulsa.

 

Out of 10 requirements, the two most lacking at many schools were courses on

"reverse engineering" - or how to gain knowledge of a technology or product

to reproduce it - and cellular communications and mobile technologies, NSA

officials said.

 

"We found a lot of schools weren't emerging with the technology, weren't

keeping up," said Captain Jill Newton, who leads NSA's cyber training and

education programs.

 

INNER WORKINGS

 

NSA officials say the program, which is part of President Barack Obama's

national initiative to improve cybersecurity through education, aims to

prepare students for careers at the U.S. Cyber Command, the NSA's signals

intelligence operations and law enforcement agencies investigating cyber

crimes.

 

U.S. officials from the Obama administration and Congress have been banging

the drums loudly about the need for greater cybersecurity, accusing China

and Russia of hacking U.S. systems for economic gain.

 

"Right now you hear a lot of talk about foreign countries, China in

particular, coming into our networks. They get in, they look around, they

see what they might want, they send it home, and you don't know what else

they've left behind," Dickie George, a former NSA official, said. "Why

wouldn't we want to do the same thing? It's not a one-way game."

 

Many universities are now focused on web technologies such as how to write

applications for the iPhone, which is not what is required for cyber

operations to collect intelligence or defend the government's systems, NSA

officials said.

 

That requires knowing "the guts, the internals of the operating systems,

having to understand how the hardware actually works," said Steven

LaFountain, a senior NSA official who guides academic programs.

 

Newton said a cyber operation might involve altering computer systems to

work to one's advantage and doing that "without being seen or without it

being obvious that I was changing the inner workings of the operating

system."

 

"It could be very useful for a defender, so as you see your stuff being

adjusted, corrupted, exploited, messed with, and being able to recognize

when that is happening to you, to be able to better defend against it," she

said.

 

About 15 years ago, there was a mindset that the computer system being

compromised happened rarely and if the security was hardened that would be

sufficient to secure it, but the security environment has changed, said

Ziring, a computer scientist and the first non-mathematician in his position

at NSA.

 

"What we've realized these days is that's hokum, that doesn't work any more,

that systems are under attack constantly," Ziring said.

 

"For many systems, especially those that for mission reasons have to work in

a very exposed space, being under some degree of compromise is sort of their

new normal state."

 

That requires actively defending the systems by blocking and mitigating

known problems and hunting for the unknown by looking for anomalies, Ziring

said.

 

ETHICAL ISSUES

 

One mandatory requirement in the curriculum is covering legal and ethical

issues so students understand the limits.

 

"We still found a lot of schools are still a little reluctant on how they

characterize what they are teaching," LaFountain said.

 

"We are not asking them to teach kids how to break into systems, we're not

asking them to teach that. And a lot of them have said they wouldn't teach

that," he said. "We're just asking them to teach the hardcore fundamental

science that we need students to have when they come to work here."

 

While the open education provides the basic knowledge, it is not until they

arrive at the NSA that newly hired cyber operators get trained in their

secret jobs.

 

"In our operational developmental organization, we would spend up to 12

months to give them the secret sauce, the tradecraft, the really deep

technical training so that they could make themselves useful in doing what

we need them to do, and that's with that technical underpinning," Newton

said.

 

Ziring said it was important to figure out the next step in threat evolution

so the technologies can be built to address it.

 

"The threat actor's action cycle is speeding up and getting shorter. The

defender's cycle has to get shorter. So what technologies can we build that

will help that?"

 

(Editing by Anthony Boadle)

 

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