The tiny Baltic nation of Estonia is experimenting with the idea of cyberconscription, a move that gives draftees with tech skills the chance to work shoring up their military\u2019s electronic infrastructure, an Estonian defense official said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\nThe experiment involves between 10 and 20 draftees, Undersecretary of Defense Erki Kodar told The Associated Press at a cybersecurity conference in Lille, in northern France. The pilot program began last summer and will be evaluated after the conscription cycle ends in June.<\/p>\n
Estonia\u2019s compulsory military service means teens can serve between eight to 11 months in the military depending on their role on whether they serve as sailors, soldiers or in other roles.<\/p>\n
Those accepted as cyberconscripts can expect to pass their time on a help desk or doing programming work, Kodar said.<\/p>\n
Government agencies and militaries across the world have long struggled to attract and keep cybersecurity professionals in the face of fierce private-sector competition, and Kodar said the plan could be a way of drawing them into the country\u2019s military or its reserves. In any case he said it didn\u2019t make sense to waste information technology talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe a highly skilled IT specialist, it\u2019s not good to get them as drivers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Estonia\u2019s cyberconscript plan is unusual, but many militaries \u2014 including France, whose cyberdefense reserves had a booth at the conference \u2014 have some kind of a call-up force of information security professionals.\u2014AP<\/p>\n
Image: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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