Findings

Congress finds that— (1) the need for qualified cybersecurity personnel is greater than ever, as demonstrated by the recent SolarWinds breach and the growing spate of ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure entities and State and local governments; (2) the Federal Government is facing a shortage of qualified cybersecurity personnel, as noted in a March 2019 Government Accountability Office report on critical staffing needs in the Federal cybersecurity workforce; (3) there is a national shortage of qualified cybersecurity personnel, and according to CyberSeek, a project supported by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there are approximately 500,000 cybersecurity job openings around the United States; (4) in May 2021, the Department announced that the Department was initiating a 60-day sprint to hire 200 cybersecurity personnel across the Department, with 100 of those hires for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, to address a cybersecurity workforce shortage; and (5) the Federal Government needs to— (A) expand the cybersecurity workforce pipeline of the Federal Government to sustainably close a Federal cybersecurity workforce shortage; and (B) work cooperatively with the private sector and State and local government authorities to expand opportunities for new cybersecurity professionals.