The Biden administration unveiled the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES), securing commitments from 37 stakeholders – like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – to increase the number of Americans in “good-paying, middle-class” cyber jobs.
Unleashing America’s Cyber Talent is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive approach aimed at addressing both immediate and long-term cyber workforce needs, the White House said.
The Deputy National Cyber Director for Technology and Ecosystem Security, Camille Stewart Gloster, said during a press briefing with reporters this morning that the NCWES is the first step to “securing and unleashing the next generation of American innovation.”
“We must support the development of a strong cyber workforce,” Gloster said. “That cyber workforce has to meet the demand that we have all heard about in filling hundreds of thousands of cyber jobs vacancies – that’s a national security imperative, an economic imperative, a human security imperative. But it also is an opportunity for good paying jobs – good paying, middle-class jobs.”
The deputy cyber director explained that the strategy has three guiding imperatives for the four areas of focus that are encapsulated in the pillars. The three guiding imperatives include:
- Leveraging adaptable ecosystems to effect change at scale: The NCWES represents a whole-of-nation effort to spark, support, and scale local ecosystems for cyber education and workforce development;
- Enabling the lifelong development of cyber skills: All Americans should be equipped with foundational cyber skills that are needed to navigate daily life; and
- Growing and enhancing the cyber workforce through improving its diversity and inclusion: A diverse workforce is a key strategic advantage. It increases the pool of eligible workers and provides novel ways to solve problems and develop innovative solutions to our most complex challenges.
The first of the four pillars in the strategy involves equipping every American with foundational cyber skills. Under this pillar, the overarching goals for the administration include making foundational cyber skills learning opportunities available to all; promoting the pursuit of foundational cyber skills and cyber careers; and fostering global progress in foundational cyber skills.
The strategy emphasizes that cyber skills must become universal – like reading and math – and defines foundational cyber skills as consisting of three components: digital literacy, digital resilience, and computational literacy.
The second pillar – transform cyber education – calls on education systems across the nation to build and leverage ecosystems to improve cyber education, from K-12 education to higher education, community colleges, and technical schools; expand competency-based cyber education; invest in educators and improving cyber education systems; and make cyber education and training more affordable and accessible.
The third pillar – expanding and enhancing the national cyber workforce includes growing the cyber workforce by proliferating and strengthening ecosystems; promoting skills-based hiring and workforce development; leveraging the diversity of America to strengthen the cyber workforce; and enhancing international engagements.
The final pillar focuses on strengthening the Federal cyber workforce by driving sustained progress through greater Federal collaboration; attracting and hiring a qualified and diverse Federal cyber workforce; improving career pathways in the Federal cyber workforce; and investing in human resources capabilities and personnel.
The completed NCWES was developed in collaboration with 34 Federal entities, including feedback from over 200 request for information responses and over 200 table reads with external stakeholders, the White House noted.
“The Office of the National Cyber Director [ONCD] will collaborate with the private and public sectors to realize the Biden-Harris administration’s vision to ensure cyberspace reflects our values: national security; economic security and prosperity; respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; trust in our democracy and democratic institutions; and an equitable and inclusive society,” Acting National Cyber Director Kemba Walden wrote in the strategy. “Strengthening our cyber workforce and equipping every American to realize the benefits of cyberspace is a whole-of-nation endeavor.”
Alongside the release of the new cyber workforce strategy today, 37 organizations made substantial announcements, commitments, or pledges to increase the number of cyber jobs in the nation.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it will invest $24 million in CyberCorps – a scholarship for service program that supports the development of a robust and resilient cybersecurity workforce by addressing the unique challenges around recruiting and retaining cybersecurity professionals for careers serving Federal, local, state, or Tribal governments.
Over the next four years, NSF will distribute the money to seven different universities across the country.
The National Security Agency’s National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity program will release four grants to support a pilot initiative to develop four new cyber clinics at accredited U.S. colleges and universities in Nevada, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Virginia.
The cyber clinics will support communities and small governments that would otherwise not have access to cyber risk assessment and planning assistance and provide an opportunity for over 200 students to develop competencies while in a supervised learning environment.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology will award up to $3.6 million for regional alliances and multi-stakeholder partnerships to stimulate cybersecurity education and workforce development projects.
The Department of Labor also announced a $65 million award in formula and competitive grants to 45 states and territories to develop and scale registered apprenticeship programs in cybersecurity and other critical sectors.
The VA announced a cybersecurity apprenticeship program for veterans: a two-year developmental program within the VA Cybersecurity Operations Center to provide a unique, hands-on learning and development experience for cybersecurity apprentices, and to encourage a career in the Federal cybersecurity workforce.
Major tech companies like Google and Microsoft also pledged financial assistance to help bolster America’s cyber workforce through higher education.
The NCWES follows the release of the President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy, which established a vision for the development of digital environment that is values-aligned and well-resourced to address today’s complex threat environment. The implementation of that strategy was released earlier this month.
ONCD’s Gloster said today that agencies can expect to see an implementation plan for the NCWES soon, but for now the office offered workers, educators, employers, and government each a guidance sheet with resources and actions they can take to bolster their cyber workforce today.
The government guidance sheet highlights the importance of state, local, Tribal, and territorial entities leveraging more skills-based hiring, increasing training opportunities, and expanding their local ecosystem.
At BLAKFX we have considered Cybersecurity a National Security issue since at least 2012. That is the year our CEO launched Wickr.
One primary reason we came into existence was to ensure cybersecurity was considered and integral part of national security and defense. We realized that the era of perimeter data security tools has long been over and that the threat of espionage and sabotage is too critical.
Our Motto: In Math We Trust
The bottom-line is that the military and the federal government are working to improve an outdated methodology that still dominates most data security products i.e. that we must build a perimeter to defend against data theft. This is old thinking and as demonstrated, hackers can breach just about any perimeter and now can use those same products to compromise their clients. American National Security cannot rely on an outdated data security protocol.
What is needed is a better approach to data security. Perimeter products that try to keep hackers out will all eventually be breached. Fanaticism on identification through bio-metrics, password managers or 2FA are only as secure as the person entrusted to follow the protocol. As we all have learned, the human error component can always be breached. In the near future, when quantum computing becomes more mainstream, products that rely on TLS-based encryption will be instantly obsolete.
The only solution is for data security products that actually protect the data itself.
The Helix22 data security SDK protects all data at rest, in use and in transit.
Review Helix22 API, examples and documentation on our GIT
BLAKFX delivers all this security assurance very confidently due to our genius engineering team spearheaded by Robert Statica and Alex Maslov who have invented a new model for data security that required an innovative look at the problem.
The new era of data security is one that requires new solutions. The era of perimeter defenses is over as it is proving impossible to keep hackers from breaching the perimeter and accessing data. Further E2E encryption based on old models of RSA cryptography will be obsolete when quantum computing becomes mainstream.
Helix22 delivers perfect security assurance due to our genius engineering team that has invented a new model for data security that required an innovative look at the problem. The approach we took was to protect the data itself. Almost all other data security products try to build a perimeter or being fanatic on user credentials. However, once the product is breached or a password is stolen, even if it is 2FA or encrypted, your firms data is in the clear.
You see, the Helix22 cryptography is embedded with the data itself through our inventive and patented process of DNA BindingTM. Therefore, even if credentials are stolen the data cannot be exfiltrated. This means that all data is 100% protected regardless of the type of attack.
Another substantial advantage of Helix22, is that it protects all data whether at rest, in use or in transit. All communication apps for example, only encrypt data while in transit. Therefore, that encryption become useless for internal IT security or Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning experimentation. All data generated during these massive computing exercises is equally protected in real time. Plus, the latency period for the Helix22 is exponentially less than any other security product, so it actually contributes to faster processing times.
In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your private communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique user-to-user encryption (U2U) world, there is no opportunity ever for any data leak.
The Helix22 data security SDK accomplishes the following:
- Protects all your firms data at rest, in use and in transit
- Renders ransomware threats obsolete
- Eliminates human error
- Eliminates all malicious or interior attacks
- Verifies original content i.e. minimizes the threat of impersonation attacks and deep fakes
- Reduces latency
- Installs with 5 lines of code
- Runs on any platform, network, device and in any programming language
- Provides perfect future/forward secrecy
- Delivers “zero-knowledge” encryption
- Compatible with all cloud, 3rd party and vendor services
- Enables Internet of Things data security by providing protection at the Edge and ultra low latency
- Ensures privacy and security for Decentralized Finance, blockchain and all cryptocurrency transactions
- Is quantum ready – so there’s no need to upgrade when the time comes
- Requires no employee training
- Exceeds all gov’t and banking standards
- Meets all international compliance regulations
D2D encryption
We can make this claim as the tech engineers at BLAKFX invented and patented a genuine device2device (D2D) encryption. We manage data security transmission through the truly brilliant and also patented universal Helix22 key service. The Helix22 encryption originates on your network or device, not just when the app is opened. This means, that when data arrives to our key server, it is already encrypted so all it needs to do is issue another key. Signal and Telegram cannot claim this level of security. This key will then only work with the intended device, which generates a matching key required to open the data. In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique device-to-device encryption (D2D) world, there is zero opportunity at all for any data leak.
This same protocol just described, can be the same with all your 3rd party vendors and suppliers. It does not matter in the least what platform they are running or what device they are using or even the type of data, it is all 100% protected. We do however, strongly advise that all firms involved be utilizing Helix22 due to the nature of the data content. Helix22 can ensure that whatever data they are generating is protected as well.
Let’s take it a step further. Even if your organization were a victim of an internal attack or a victim of malicious open source downloads, there is no reason for concern. Any data that has been forwarded, downloaded, copied or saved cannot be exfiltrated. Period. We have the technology industries foremost data packets which are protected with multi-layered, military grade encryption algorithms that have already proven the ability to withstand penetration testing from MI5 and quantum computing attacks.
One final practical genius of DNA BindingTM is in that it is immediately compatible with whichever system or software you are utilizing. Therefore, any organization can forward information to another and then discuss it and there is immediate privacy.
The BLAKFX Suite of Data Security Products
In addition to the fastest and most secure data protection product available in Helix22, we provide a full range of security products for an holistic approach.
We are on a mission to stop ransomware threats
Ransomware Auditing as a Service (RaaS): ransomware attacks have skyrocketed in the past year and currently represents the biggest threat to the data of government agencies, military, intelligence agencies as well as private enterprises. BLAKFX developed the first in the world Ransomware Auditing as a Service (RaaS) platform which allows our cyber security engineers to scan your network and simulate real-world ransomware attacks to test the prevention, detection and mitigation strategies of your organization and establish how resilient your network is to real ransomware attacks. After the scan we provide a comprehensive report and our recommendations for remediation.
If you are the victim of an actual ransomware attack, we are able to recover the data that has been hi-jacked during the attack and due to Helix22’s DNA BindingTM cryptography, restore it to its original state.
DARKHYDRA3 – Auditing/Penetration Testing: we provide cyber auditing & penetration testing services in order to identify the gaps in your network, cloud, communications, network appliances, wireless networks, laptops, desktops & mobile devices, website, backup and 3rd party applications and services. Once we scan your systems, we provide a comprehensive report and our recommendations for remediation.
MSS & Insider Threat Prevention: BLAKFX has a national security level Secure Operations Center that can monitor your network (via our Managed Security Service) for threats & vulnerabilities as well as your employees via threat behavioral analysis techniques in order to stop threats (including insider threats) before they become a problem for your network, data and organization.
TSCM: many organizations and government agencies are aware of the threats posed by hacking surveillance and data theft but are not aware that Technical Surveillance Counter Measures and Electronic Security are an essential component of overall risk mitigation. BLAKFX’s access to the most sophisticated equipment, military and intelligence community level RF frequencies monitoring expertise is unique in the world.
Physical Security: we offer overall physical security services and designs for your buildings, data centers, cloud providers, airplanes, vehicles and personnel security. We provide full physical security planning, insider threat detection and prevention, physical security audits, certification, and security awareness training.
Global Governments: (restrictions apply) Click here to request information & quotes
*Katim Ultra Secure Smartphone: part of the BLAKFX’s suite of secure products, we are pleased to offer governments, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, military forces globally and enterprises, a fully user2user encrypted phone, with secure messenger, secure email, secure news, secure audio/video calling & secure conference calling.
Blacklight & CyAn – OSINT: the Collection Platform provides real time comprehensive view of collected intelligence from various sources. The system allows for more effective operation management by allowing the operators to control all available intelligence gathering tools from a single, unified dashboard. By allowing centralized control, alongside presentation of key intelligence and insights the overall operational effectiveness is significantly increased.
The Analytics Platform system fuses all field intelligence meta-data and cyber intelligence content, as well as other data sources, to highlight and identify suspicious activity, important events and analyze suspects’ relationships and communications. The system can provide in-depth operational understanding in near-real-time to the field operations teams.
Pre-Crime, Data Fusion and Big-Data Analysis: a full range of capacity for big data analytics. Analyze billions of events, merge data from heterogeneous sources, reveal weak signals and understand the digital behavior of a target are some of the numerous features of the Analytics Center. It’s composed of modules like Analytics, Profile, Relational and Predictive.
LLDDS: Low Level Defender Drone System consists of three essential elements, the first of which is our Ground Based Sensor Node (GBSN). The GBSN employs a very low power, high sensitivity FMCW radar system, functionally integrated with a complementary video/IR detection and confirmation system. The GBSN is controlled by AI and by either a single on-site operator or via remote operator control over our fully secure Command, Control and Communications (C3) SatComm-based network. The second element in the System is a medium endurance, low-level, missile-armed defender drone. This critical airborne asset will provide: persistent or on-demand zone protection including airborne patrol, target identification, target confirmation, and attack. This unmanned, very capable platform is the attack and deterrent end of the LLDD defense chain. It is continuously and closely monitored and controlled by AI and a Controller/Operator – in real-time – via the LLDD C3 SatComm Network. Our highly automated and minimally manned concept employs proven off-the-shelf, ground-based and airborne sensors and platforms combined with proprietary BLAKFX technology.
Note: Items marked with * are available for enterprises as well
BLAKFX is Based on Success
Our founders, Robert Statica PhD and Kara Coppa, also founded Wickr, which is used by the US military and has never been hacked since its inception in 2012. The Helix22 data security SDK is several generations enhanced since then. Dr. Statica also delivered the encryption for the world’s most secure phone, Katim.
Founder – Robert Statica PhD Founder – Kara Coppa
Co-Founders of Wickr KatimTM Ultra Secure Smartphone
Helix22 – Zero Risk