NASA Is Still Trying To Figure Out This Whole IT Security Thing
Reader note: “Thought you might find this sadly amusing. I am NASA contractor. I just received notice today [29 Jan 2013] that my personal data was compromised in the Laptop theft from a NASA HQ employee on 10/31/12. The letter I received notes that NASA understands the ‘seriousness’ of this matter – so much so that it only took 3 months to notify me of this breach. Apparently the idiocy of their ‘concern’is self-evident to all except the NASA bureaucracy.”
– NASA CIO Cureton Is Leaving NASA, earlier post
– Did NASA Meet Its 21 Dec 2012 DAR Deadline?, earlier post
– They’re Clueless at NASA CIO
– earlier posts
My wife got one of those letters last week. She’s never worked for NASA, except briefly as a contractor 7-8 years ago. I’d love to know what that database on the stolen laptop was composed of.
… and why it wasn’t encrypted.
What is the deal with all these unprotected official laptops? Don’t they know you can protect them with laptop tracking, anti theft software? Look at the Devicetrack (dot net) website .Does the job and could have saved a lot of students and the University from unnecessary losses..
I got the same letter a few days ago. I don’t have it to hand at the moment, but I recall some phrase in there along the lines of “taking immediate action.” Perhaps this is some definition of “immediate” I’m not familiar with.
Who would’ve even comprehended that of all the government agencies to be computer illiterate, it would be NASA? Apparently they believed the government would do security for them.It appears the public has better IT security.
I too am a contractor. I received my letter in early January.
Back in mid Nov, they said “could take as long as 60 days to notify”, so I guess we’re looking at 60 days (plus time in the mail) when the letters start showing up. 10,000 people is a goodly fraction of the total NASA/Contractor population if you think about it (assuming these are all people with NASA badges). the nasapeople website says just under 18,000 civil servants, and figuring about the same number of contractors, 10,000 is about 1 out of 4. (nasapeople says ” more than 40,000 contractors and grantees work.” but I think that includes things like professors and their grad students, etc.)