Staffing Problems at CI-SOC

While the news was all positive Saturday at the official opening of the Cybersecurity Agency’s (CSA) new Critical Infrastructure Security Operations Center (CI-SOC), there are indications that the new facility is experiencing start-up problems.

At mid-morning today there were only twenty cars parked in front of the old Sears building in Delano Crossing, the new home of CI-SOC. This is a far cry from the 1,5000 employees that are supposed to be working at the facility, or even the quarter of that that would be expected to on hand for any given shift of a 24-7 operation. According to an unnamed source at the CI-SOC, the facility has been having problems hiring people with the requisite skills.

Gen Buck Turgidson (Ret), the Director of CI-SOC, confirms that there are 100 new employees in training at the Army’s Cyber Command’s headquarters in nearby Augusta, AG. “The next class of SOC operators graduates from Augusta next week,” Turgidson said; “We expect all 100 of them to be standing watch by Christmas.”

Turgidson refused to answer questions about when full staffing of the CI-SOC is expected.

Immanuel C. Securitage, spokes person for ECS-CERT, confirmed today that half of the Agency’s investigative personnel have been reassigned to CI-SOC. “There are only so many cyber operators on the operational security side available in the current market place,” Securitage said, “Part of our security tasking has been moved to CI-SOC and we were required to support that change with a transfer of personnel.”

The Army Cyber Command has confirmed that personnel with military cybersecurity training were being actively recruited by CI-SOC as they approached their estimated termination of service date. Personnel were being offered recruiting bonuses and counting military service time for Federal employment seniority. All grades, officer and enlisted, are being recruited.

Personnel issues are not the only problems at CI-SOC. There was also a short line of 18-wheelers waiting to backup to the facilities two loading docks most of the day. Our insider tells us that large numbers of equipment boxes are stacked in the old warehouse section of the building. Service technicians from various technology companies could be seen coming and going throughout the day, parking in the old automotive service bays along side the building. Equipment is obviously still being installed at the supposedly operational facility, two new satellite dishes went up on the roof of the building today.

Ida Long, Director of the CSA, admitted to reporters in Washington today that the CI-SOC was not yet up to full operational capabilities. “It takes a while to stand up a new security organization like this,” Long said; “We do have operational capabilities working today and we expect to bring on additional capabilities every day. The important thing to take away from this is that we new capabilities to monitor and respond to cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. This is something we did not have last week.”

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