Where are Abby Sciuto and Timothy McGee when we need their help?  It would seem that their almost supernatural skills in cybersecurity and good-guy hacking are in great demand.  As reported by Josh Smith in NextGov:

Many of the FBI field agents assigned to combat cyber threats say they do not have enough expertise to do it, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

 

Justice Department officials found that more than a third of the 36 FBI agents surveyed said they don’t have the networking or counterintelligence expertise needed to effectively investigate national security breaches. The report also said that field offices lacked the forensic and analytical capabilities to take on national security investigations.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has proposed cybersecurity legislation on Capitol Hill, said the need for a capable cybersecurity work force is “more urgent than ever.”

“The threat of cyber attacks continues to grow every day,” said Collins, ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a statement. “That is why it is so troubling that the federal government has not adequately trained its cyber professionals to combat these threats.”

…

 

A dearth of trained cybersecurity professionals is plaguing government and industry efforts, with some analysts estimating that the U.S. needs 20,000 to 30,000 more people to adequately defend cyberspace.

The Washington Examiner reported yesterday that:

The U.S. Naval Academy is changing its core curriculum for the first time in about 10 years by adding two cybersecurity courses …

The two new requirements come as the school is ramping up training in a field of growing importance to national security. …

"All along, our role has been to develop one or two courses that would give every academy graduate a solid foundation in cybersecurity," said Andrew Phillips, the school’s academic dean. "We spent over a year now collecting advice and feedback from the Navy and the Marine Corps and shopping our ideas around with anyone who might have an opinion and some expertise in this area."

It was interesting to read that the Navy is trailing the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Air Force Academy, which have had cybersecurity as part of information technology requirements for more than a decade.

Maybe Leroy Jethro Gibbs and the crew over at NCSI convinced the Navy they should step into the modern era!