Anonymous ID: 0a54db May 4, 2019, 8:15 a.m. No.6411764   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1938 >>2291

NOTABLE.

 

The White House launched its latest effort to bolster the government’s cybersecurity workforce.

 

President Trump issued an executive order Thursday that introduces new initiatives and expands existing national efforts aimed to “grow and strengthen” America’s cyber workforce. The programs laid out in the order will help better standardize cross-government language around cybersecurity, incentivize engagement from academia and federal agencies, and accelerate learning to address the nation’s urgent need to fill the cyber workforce gap.

 

“More than 300,000 cybersecurity job vacancies exist in the United States today,” President Trump said in a statement. “They must be filled to protect our critical infrastructure, national defense, and the American way of life.”

 

Senior administration officials noted that the order begins to address the challenge of ensuring that cybersecurity professionals have mobility into and outside of federal government and industry.

 

Related: Pentagon’s Cyber Mission Force Needs Better Training Plan

Related: Is the US Ready to Escalate in Cyberspace?

Related: The US Needs a Cybersecurity Civilian Corps

“United States Government policy must facilitate the seamless movement of cybersecurity practitioners between the public and private sectors, maximizing the contributions made by their diverse skills, experiences, and talents to our Nation,” the order said.

 

The administration is also creating a federal rotational program in which feds can expand their expertise through temporary cyber-related assignments within other agencies, in hopes that new exposure will increase skills and encourage interagency knowledge transfers. The program mirrors a bipartisan bill that the Senate passed this week, which enables some cyber professionals to rotate across various agencies.

 

The order establishes a “President’s Cup” cybersecurity competition that will challenge and reward the government’s top cyber personnel. The new competition is still in its planning process, officials said, but it’s being modeled off of other national collegiate cyber contests.

 

Officials said the order will also help agencies identify and implement aptitude assessments that will help re-skill employees who exude potential.

 

The order will also introduce new awards programs that will recognize government personnel who have made significant contributions to cybersecurity or cyber operations. It will also establish the Presidential Cybersecurity Education Awards to celebrate elementary and secondary school educators teaching cybersecurity-related content.

 

In an effort to get government insiders on the same page around cyber practices and language, the order also encourages the widespread adoption of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, or NICE framework, which serves as a reference for identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining cybersecurity talent.

 

Officials also said they hope that diversification within the cyber workforce will become a “natural byproduct” of this effort and that they also hope to increase pay scales to better meet the market demand for high-skilled cyber workers.

 

“America built the internet and shared it with the world; now we will do our part to secure and preserve cyberspace for future generations,” the president said.

 

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/05/trump-signs-executive-order-boost-federal-cyber-workforce/156740/?oref=d-channelriver

Anonymous ID: 0a54db May 4, 2019, 8:25 a.m. No.6411813   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1938 >>2291

Notables..

 

China hands death, suspended death sentences to Canadian, US citizens,

 

A court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has sentenced a Canadian national to death drug smuggling, drawing protests from Ottawa, while handing a suspended death sentence to a U.S. citizen.

 

Fan Wei was handed the sentence along with 10 others by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court, which found him guilty of drug trafficking as part of an international narcotics syndicate that sold and produced methamphetamine and dimethylamylamine in Guangdong’s Taishan city between July and November 2012.

 

Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said the Canadian government was “very concerned” about the sentencing.

 

“Canada stands firmly opposed to the use of the death penalty, everywhere around the world,” Freeland said. “We think that this is a cruel and inhumane punishment, which should not be used in any country. We are … particularly concerned when it is applied to Canadians.”

 

The Canadian foreign ministry has called for clemency.

 

The court said in a statement that the number of drugs sold and manufactured “was extremely large and the crimes were extremely serious.”

 

The court also sentenced U.S. citizen Mark Swidan to death, suspended for two years, in the same case.

 

All of those convicted have 10 days to lodge an appeal. The sentences followed a trial in 2013, but the Jiangmen court has repeatedly applied for extensions to the three-month time limit to pass sentence.

 

The Supreme People’s Court approved more than 20 such extensions, with no explanation provided to the families, according to U.S.-based rights group the Duihua Foundation.

 

No evidence produced

 

The group said that no forensic evidence has was produced, with no drugs in his system, no DNA on the packages, no fingerprints on the packages, or drug paraphernalia, tying Swidan to the drugs.

 

No emails, letters, or phone calls were cited, linking him to any transaction, and Swidan had no previous history of criminal behavior, it said.

 

“The Swidan family was never told why the judgment was repeatedly extended, a violation of a basic norm of transparency,” Duihua’s executive director John Kamm said in a recent statement.

 

“Mr. Swidan’s rights to a fair trial and due process have been seriously abused,” Kamm said.

 

Fan is the second Canadian national to be sentenced to death this year.

 

At least 13 Canadians were detained after Chinese officials vowed to retaliate for the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of China’s flagship telecoms company Huawei.

 

While at least eight have since been released, a court in the northeastern city of Dalian on Dec. 29 handed down the death penalty to Canadian national Robert Schellenberg, who had originally been sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug smuggling.

 

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and consultant Michael Spavor remain in detention on suspicion of “endangering national security.”

 

Kovrig is a diplomat on leave who was working for the International Crisis Group think tank at the time of his detention, while Spavor is an entrepreneur known for contacts with high-ranking North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un.

 

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/05/china-hands-death-suspended-death-sentences-to-canadian-us-citizens/