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CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE 


PROTECTION 


EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, 


AND COMMUNICATIONS 
 https://langevin.house.gov 

August 1, 2017 

Ms. Danielle Santos 


Cybersecurity Workforce RFI 


National Institute of Standards and Technology 


100 Bureau Drive, Stop 2000 


Gaithersburg, MD 20899 


Dear Ms. Santos: 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has requested information on the scope and 

sufficiency of efforts to educate and train the American cybersecurity workforce ofthe 

future. Investment in our nation's cybersecurity workforce is crucial to our national and 

economic security, and I write to applaud NIST for its efforts in this matter. While we often 

. focus on the technologies that result from research, it is at least as much the skilled workforce 

behind the breakthroughs that drives our col:lntry forward. 

Unfortunately, we are far behind where we need to be. Within the cybersecurity workforce 

today, we have hundreds ofthousands ofjobs unfilled, thereby limiting our ability as a nation to 

respond to the malicious actors who daily target our infrastructure, finances, and intellectual 

property. We need short, medium, and long term solutions that reach all components ofthe 

educational pipeline from K-12 education to university programs to certifications. We also need 

· to explore retraining and apprenticeships as ways to infuse additional talent into the field. 

In order to properly understand the scope ofthe challenge, it is crucial that NIST applies 

measures and metrics to the cybersecurity workforce, and I was pleased to see their inclusion 

within the request. As a nation, we must analyze the expected demand for cybersecurity 

personnel, the efficacy oftraining programs in producing skilled workers, and the ability of our 

educators, both in number and in capability, to instruct students. Furthermore, we must share 

across our communities the lessons and best practices learned from these studies to ensure that 

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students throughout the nation have access to the best cybersecurity education possible no matter 

where they live. 

Additionally, the dynamic nature oftechnology development ensures that even our best laid 

plans will require adaptation as innovative technologies come on the market. This is perhaps one 

ofthe most significant challenges that we will face in shaping tomorrow's workforce, and it will 

require novel approaches to training. The emerging use of artificial intelligence to assist 

cybersecurity tasks, for example, may dramatically alter the tasks of a computer and network 

security engineer in the coming decades. Similarly, the rapid growth in connected devices may 

create new classes of cybersecurity professionals focused on the unique challenges posed by the 

Internet of Things. We must prepare our workforce for this future while also preparing them to 

be adaptable to the disruptions that we expect but cannot predict. 

Only by continuing to invest in our skilled workforce will we be able to ensure our nation's 

continued security and prosperity in the digital economy. This request for information is a 

positive contribution to understanding where the workforce is today and what we must do in the 

future. I thank you for your leadership on this issue and I look forward to the results of your 

request. 

o::i . ~e:~.L~gevin,~ Member ofCongress