HERMITAGE, Pa. - The White House is ramping up its effort to protect Americans from online attacks. With hundreds of thousands of open jobs across the nation in the cyber sector, they need more people to defend against attackers.

To help get more people into the field, the Pennsylvania Cyber Security Center will offer a course through Mercyhurst University in Erie, PA for neuro-divergent highschoolers, such as children with ADD or Autism, in the Spring of 2025. 

“We have this significant disparity in the number of jobs versus the number of people who are entering cyber security and one of the goals of ours is to get students at this early age and just open them up to the opportunity,” Bradley Calleja, the Executive Director LindenPointe Development Corporation said. 

In Pennsylvania, there are 12,000 open cyber security jobs and another 12,000 in Ohio, according to White House officials. Those same officials say cybercrime is on the rise - nearly doubling in the past year. Without people in cyber jobs, America's security is at risk. 

“Our adversaries are going after those that are least capable of defending themselves like schools ... they’re going after our hospitals ... they’re going after houses of faith,” Harry Coker Jr. the new White House National Cyber Director said. 

The attackers usually come from foreign countries like China, North Korea, Russia and Iran and are always coming up with new ways to break in. 

Coker said, to stay ahead, they have to make it more costly for them to attack and to put creative thinkers on the job as defenders.

“They need to recognize they’re in a fight not with an enemy we necessarily see or touch physically but our threats are always there,” Coker said.