Military companies in the US are considering plans to employ cyber soldiers as the Pentagon moves to establish a cybercommand to manage future cyberwars.

The concept of preparing fighting cyberattacks is set to overhaul the idea of war in the US with computer talents gradually joining old soldiers.

Military giants including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are now busy with recruiting "hacker soldiers" to address the new demand for an unconventional cyberwar and in a way to blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.

The computer nerds who were used to working in the Silicon Valley, now are recruited by the US military companies to prepare the country for a potential cyberwar.

The US government officials claim they face thousands of cyberattacks by Chinese and Russian hackers and they must protect their sensitive networks against such attacks. Moscow and Beijing have dismissed the claims.

“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run a Raytheon unit, New York Times reported on Sunday.

As the recession forces more layoffs in the US, the new exotic job market seems to be promising for “cyberninjas” who are recruited by military companies to block the cyberattacks and design countermeasures.

Reports last month suggested that cyberspies successfully copied and took away several terabytes of sensitive data related to design and electronic systems of the costly F-35 Lightning II fighter.

Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals USD 10 billion annually, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect the figure to rise rapidly.