The White House Office of the National Cyber Director, or ONCD, has launched a hiring sprint, called Service for America, to link U.S. citizens to cybersecurity, technology and artificial intelligence jobs as part of efforts to protect national security while helping Americans chart a career path.

In a blog post published Wednesday, National Cyber Director Harry Coker wrote that ONCD is partnering with the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management on the recruitment sprint.

According to Coker, there are about 500,000 open cyber jobs in the U.S., highlighting the country’s critical need for cyber talent.

“ONCD and its partners will be sharing information about career fairs, job postings, and other resources to connect job seekers with employers and help them on their journey into cyber,” he wrote.

The cyber chief noted that his office has promoted best practices to make cyber jobs more accessible as part of the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy, such as removing unnecessary degree requirements, transitioning to a skills-based approach and expanding work-based learning.

The National Security Agency, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and international allies have issued a joint advisory on a group of Russian military cyberthreat actors targeting critical infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad as part of efforts to conduct espionage, reputational harm and sabotage.

NSA said Thursday the cyber actors linked to the Russian GRU Unit 29155 are responsible for deploying the WhisperGate malware against victim organizations in Ukraine as early as January 2022 and have performed malicious computer network operations against several NATO member countries.

According to the advisory, the malicious actors’ activities include data exfiltration, infrastructure scanning, data leak operations and website defacements.

Since early 2022, the threat actors have been focused on disrupting efforts to deliver aid to Ukraine.

The advisory includes recommendations to mitigate malicious cyber activities, such as prioritizing routine system updates and remediating known exploited vulnerabilities, segmenting networks and enabling phishing-resistant multifactor authentication for all externally facing account services.

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