Cybersecurity not ready for professionalization.

• Position: CYBERSECURITY

The U.S. cybersecurity work force is too broad and diverse to be treated as a single occupation or profession, concluded a recent report from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Professionalizing the Nation's Cybersecurity Workforce? Criteria for Decision Making." The researchers did, however, recognize that the cybersecurity field requires specialized knowledge and intensive advanced training; it's simply too young and diverse a discipline to introduce professional standards.

"Many aspects of the cybersecurity field are changing rapidly, from new technologies to the types of threats we face to the ways offensive and defensive measures are carried out," said Diana Burley, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report and associate professor of human and organizational learning at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "Premature or blanket professionalization strategies will likely hinder efforts to build a national cybersecurity workforce of sufficient quality, size, and flexibility to meet the needs of this dynamic environment."

The cybersecurity work force encompasses a wide variety of roles and responsibilities and requires an array of skills and abilities, including behavioral and management skills, as well...