Tokyo: Japan’s Defense Ministry is boosting efforts to increase cyber defense personnel at the Self-Defense Forces to some 20,000 over the next five years.

With cybersecurity experts lacking in both the public and private sectors, the ministry is moving to enhance its educational and training system to increase cyber defense specialists for itself.

As of the end of fiscal 2022 through March this year, the number of SDF personnel belonging to cyber-related units stood at some 890, including 540 members of the Cyber Defense Command, created in fiscal 2021.

Japan is lagging far behind other countries in the area. China is believed to have 30,000 personnel at its cyberattack unit alone, while the United States has 6,200 cybersecurity personnel and North Korea 6,800 personnel.

The ministry plans to increase the SDF cyber defense personnel to some 2,200 by the end of fiscal 2023 and to 4,000 by the end of 2027.

By training system operators for the Ground, Maritime and Air SDF, the ministry plans to increase the total number of personnel that can be mobilized to deal with cyberattacks to 20,000.

To drastically strengthen its educational system, the ministry will reorganize the GSDF Signal School in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, to the GSDF System and Signal/Cyber School by the end of fiscal 2023, planning to provide specialist training to personnel from the Ground, Maritime and Air SDF. The school will have a cybersecurity education department.

The ministry will also improve the system and cyber defense course at the GSDF’s High Technical School while considering setting up a new department at the National Defense Academy to train cyber-related experts among senior officials.

SDF members who already have cyber defense-related skills will be sent to private companies and overseas institutions to learn cutting-edge knowledge.

“Hunts for cybersecurity experts are heating up also in the private sector,” a senior ministry official said. “It’s better to train experts ourselves, given confidentiality concerns.”

The revised National Security Strategy, released in December last year, envisions the introduction of “active cyber defense” aimed at eliminating the possibility of serious cyberattacks in advance.

The strategy also calls for acquiring counterattack capabilities to block and neutralize cyberattacks, in addition to preventing intrusion into computer systems.

JIJI Press