Pentagon to triple cybersecurity staff

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon plans to more than triple its cybersecurity staff in the next few years to defend against Internet attacks that threaten national security, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday.

Hagel’s comments at the National Security Agency headquarters in suburban Washington come as he prepares to visit China next week, where officials are likely to challenge him amid reports of aggressive U.S. cyber spying.

“The Department of Defense is on its way to building a modern cyberforce,” Hagel said in a speech at the retirement of Gen. Keith Alexander as head of the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency.

“This force is enhancing our ability to deter aggressionin cyberspace, deny adversaries their objectives, and defend the nation from cyberattacks that threaten our national security.”

The Pentagon has been recruiting outside talent for the work as well as encouraging people already in the military to train for the jobs. By 2016, the Pentagon should have 6,000 cyber professionals, Hagel said. That compares to some 1,800 by the end of this year.

“Our nation’s reliance on cyberspace outpaces our cybersecurity,” Hagel said. “Our nation confronts the proliferation of destructive malware and a new reality of steady, ongoing and aggressive efforts to probe, access or disrupt public and private networks, and the industrial control systems that manage our water, and our energy and our food supplies.”