Developing Military Cyber Workforce in a Conscript Armed Forces: Recruitment, Challenges and Options

摘要

Digitalization of society brings new possibilities, but also threats from cyberspace. Addressing these threats brings challenges to citizens, industry, governments and armed forces. One of the challenges faced is addressing the workforce issues: how to recruit the best talent possible, and how to retain them. There were two research questions which we attempt to answer in the current paper: "How can we best identify and utilise young cyber talent in a conscript army?" and "How can we retain the best cyber workforce in the defence sector?". The focus of the study is on Estonia. This is significant because of two main reasons: (1) the historical experiences of being involved with cyber-attacks, as a victim or expert to other nations; (2) numerous e-services being used by the citizens and (3) widely functioning e-governance. Even though the focus is on Estonia and a conscript army, the findings of the study could be scalable to other nations. As part of research, we conducted an analysis the current situation relying on different sources and interviewing academics, military officers and national-level decision-makers. Our main goal was to analyse how the military can recruit best possible personnel for cyber security; what is cyber conscription; what would be the motivation and readiness to implement cyber conscription for all players involved; and what happens after conscription is completed. We also looked at how to attract young talents to choose cyber security education and career, either in the military or in society at large. This research has been commissioned by the Estonian Ministry of Defence, with the aim of introducing cyber conscription in the military.