MELBOURNE, Fla., May 31 (UPI) -- Lucrative Pentagon contracts and the private-sector recession are luring young "cybergeeks" into working on U.S. computer security, experts say.
Computer engineers -- many of them young non-conformists who in the past may have worked for Silicon Valley companies -- are now being highly recruited by defense contractors such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin as the U.S. government struggles to stay ahead of cyberwarfare curve, The New York Times reported Sunday.
"Everybody's attacking everybody," Scott Chase, a 30-year-old, ponytailed computer engineer who helps run a Raytheon computer security facility near the Kennedy Space Center in Melbourne, Fla., told the newspaper.
One of the office's top young workers, identified only as Dustin, 22, said he approaches cyberwarfare work "like a game, and it's been fun."
The Times said military contractors are turning the protection of sensitive Pentagon data into a new, lucrative business that may replace some of the government contract money they have lost from the cancellations of conventional weapons systems.
