Step aside James Bond. Take a seat Jason Bourne. Yes, it's true that the government is stepping up their efforts to recruit elite agents with specialized skill-sets. However the NSA's current recruitment drive isn't intended to attract deadly killers capable of taking care of business in the field. No, currently the NSA is looking for computer hackers to add to its "collection of geeks."
Representatives from the National Security Agency, which is the cryptographic arm of the U.S. intelligence services, are apparently attending the Las Vegas hacker convention, DefCon, en masse in an effort to recruit the best and the brightest in hacker talent. Cybercrime and hacking in particular, have been on the rise in the past year. High profile hackings are now regularly reported on by major news outlets like CNN and hacker groups like Anonymous have practically become household names.
Certainly the U.S. government has taken notice. The NSA apparently plan to hire some 1,500 cyber warriors in the coming year. Apparently the NSA is of the opinion that it takes hackers to catch hackers. Jeff Moss, who in addition to being a founder of the DefCon conference also advises the Department of Homeland Security on cyber crime, is in agreement.
"They need people with the hacker skill set, the hacker mind set," Moss told Atlantic Wire. "It's not like you go to hacker university and get blessed with a badge that says your a hacker. It's a self-appointed label."
It's foreseeable that the super spies of tomorrow may forego carrying Walther PPKs and sipping martinis in favor of packing pocket protectors and downing extra large slurpees.
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