Paul Pitelli, the man responsible for leading the National Security Agency’s defensive mission, says his team is fielding more calls than ever from agencies across the government.

Underlining the NSA's race to hire the best and brightest is a list of universities that offer myriad of computer security training programs, each providing a stepping stone into the secretive agency. In this context, Carnegie Mellon University is to the NSA what the University of Alabama is to the NFL.

Curtis Dukes' departure comes a few months after the the NSA's network defenders, the Information Assurance Directorate he headed, were merged with its eavesdroppers into a new Operations Directorate.