Pay has gotten better, plus the individual branches all have stronger CyberCorps now.
That said, CyberCom still has issues because it's a unified command and not a branch, which means it has limited say and will always get overshadowed by individual branches and the NSA.
Another interesting change is the rise of private sector players and public-private partnerships to help remediate the pay gap - this is what China and Russia did due to similar issues around renumeration, and most other NATO+ allies like Israel, UAE, Singapore, etc leverage this model.
Anecdotally, outside of the NSA, it appears that most what I'd term "white collar lifers" within branches prefer Intel over Cyber because it's easier to learn due to less STEM, and a significant portion of those who do Cyber will tend to leave for private sector.
That said, Cyber Reserves forces are fairly prominent now and probably the best way to remediate this gap.
I'm biased, but imo, the US needs to adopt the Israeli model of public-private offensive security capabilities plus a strong reserves component, because the pay gap and the respect gap just won't be fixed due to internal intertia in the services.
That said, CyberCom still has issues because it's a unified command and not a branch, which means it has limited say and will always get overshadowed by individual branches and the NSA.
Another interesting change is the rise of private sector players and public-private partnerships to help remediate the pay gap - this is what China and Russia did due to similar issues around renumeration, and most other NATO+ allies like Israel, UAE, Singapore, etc leverage this model.
Anecdotally, outside of the NSA, it appears that most what I'd term "white collar lifers" within branches prefer Intel over Cyber because it's easier to learn due to less STEM, and a significant portion of those who do Cyber will tend to leave for private sector.
That said, Cyber Reserves forces are fairly prominent now and probably the best way to remediate this gap.
I'm biased, but imo, the US needs to adopt the Israeli model of public-private offensive security capabilities plus a strong reserves component, because the pay gap and the respect gap just won't be fixed due to internal intertia in the services.