Should security pros get special H-1B visa consideration? Article published in CSO, February 16 2017
I read the above article in CSO publication and my response is a resounding “NO”! I am not aligned to any political POV but there is too much at stake if we as a Nation use the H-1B visas to import security talent from overseas, please pay attention to the following:
The talent in Cybersecurity, IT security or data privacy does not exist in a third world country. Yes in the past three years members of this Nation have been engaged in projects across the USA, and they have taken a note about the growing importance of the security landscape. However, the country does not have the kind of talent we need to secure our borders our National security and crown Jewels of our Corporations. Bottom Line if our corporate leaders sincerely love this country, its economy, and most importantly the future of our kids and the American new generation to carry the baton forward, please think hard. I do not think our leaders will sacrifice our growth and our future to build the economy of high skilled labor that does not understand our complex regulations.
I urge leaders of Microsoft, Google, Pepsi, and ….to please spare America from importing security resources from outside the USA. These successful leaders have a moral obligation to invest in the USA based workforce. Yes we have great talents and there are many creative ways to promote learning and growth with our young hungry dedicated workforce. I would hope these leaders would not jeopardize America’s National Security at the cost of boosting the economy of a third world Nation. I would keep all outsourced resources far away from any Cybersecurity work or contracts. Here are my reasons:
The leaders from this country have good legacy IT knowledge and over the years they have built capabilities in some software packages (SAP, Oracle, Cerner, EPic…). Many claim numerous certifications, education degrees from the Indian Institute and previous work experiences. Background checks provide some alarming outcomes.
On Cybersecurity and Data Privacy engagements there has been a widespread of fraud, false reporting, deceiving the client. Sorry to say the imported resources have been a major setback in sincere Cybersecurity efforts as their leaders are ignorant in this space In many cases they copy data from one client and present it to a different client, which is a violation of professional code of conduct. It is a nightmare to implement an effective holistic Cybersecurity framework. All IT leaders basically have a quick code fix. The imported workforce has many challenges and they are not good at strategic thinking.
American leadership needs to eradicate mainframe legacy mindset from all Cybersecurity engagements, there is a trust factor that is at stake.