Source: RT
Four dozen high-tech computing devices disappeared from the offices
of NASA over a two-year span, including one laptop that contained the
code needed to command the International Space Station.
No big deal, guys!
A laptop with the algorithm used to control
the ISS was one of 48 gizmos and gadgets that NASA either reported lost
or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency’s inspector
general, Paul Martin, tells the House Committee on Science, Space and
Technology. Although the incidents date back to nearly three years ago,
Martin has only now informed Congress of the accidents. They are
discussed in a written statement he authored and published this week
under the title “NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency’s
Information Security.”
For the Cliff Notes version, we’ve got you covered. Information security at NASA: not so good.
Over the course of ten pages, Martin makes mention of what he says are five issues that NASA believes, based on their “extensive audit and investigative work,” make up NASA’s “most serious challenges in the admittedly difficult task of protecting the agency’s information.”
For starters, we suggest putting a damn lock on the safe.
Martin goes on to list those challenges as including a “lack of full awareness of Agency-wide security posture,”“shortcomings in implementing a continuous monitoring approach to IT security” and the “slow pace of encryption.” Also, however, he adds that one “challenge” in particular, is the ability to handle a sophisticated cyber attack.
Now,
what separates a sophisticated cyber attack from a stupid,
simple-minded one is something Martin would have to extrapolate on a bit
more. But in regards to losing four dozen mobile computing devices —
well, keeping a close eye on those things isn’t rocket science. And if
it was, you’d expect NASA of all agencies to be able to handle it,
wouldn’t you?
