Page 50 - Cybersecurity Career Guide for UT Austin

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Spycraft, Front and
Center
The Pentagon’s main cybersecurity unit, CYBERCOM,
disrupts the sources of cyberattacks.
is one of 11 unified combat commands of
the U.S. Defense Department. Why was
it involved in election security efforts?
Well, its mission includes working
to strengthen America’s ability
to withstand and respond to
cyberattacks, as well as
supporting the global mis-
sions of combat command-
ers and defending the Pen-
tagon’s information network.
It’s based at the NSA’s head-
quarters at Ft. Meade, MD. The
agencies have what’s called
a “dual-hat” structure, be-
cause the director of the
NSA is also CYBERCOM’s
commander.
CYBERCOM could be a
great place to work for students
who are interested in working in cy-
bersecurity but who are also intrigued by
the secret world of spycraft. While it was
initially set up to have a defensive pos-
ture, today it often plays offense. As
the New York Times reported earlier this
year, in the early days of the internet, cy-
berattacks were expected to evolve into
a new type of warfare. Instead, hacking
has become a widely used tool of state-
craft. “Hacking is coming to play a role in
the 21st century much like espionage did
in the 20th,” the Times noted. By often
working in conjunction with the NSA
Fears ahead of the 2020 U.S. elec-
tion that foreign hackers would
interfere with the vote thankfully
proved unwarranted. Indeed,
the federal Department
of Homeland Security’s
Cybersecurity & Infra-
structure Security
Agency declared that the
election was “the most
secure in American his-
tory.” One reason for that
great result was efforts made
by the U.S. Cyber Com-
mand (CYBERCOM), the
Pentagon’s main cyber-
security unit, in conjunc-
tion with the National
Security Agency (NSA), to
harden defenses of voting
systems nationwide and to dis-
rupt foreign threats to the vote.
CYBERCOM, which is only 11 years old,
careers: CYBERCOM and DC3