Keith’s note: Websites are a thing that people have been doing for a quarter of a century. Despite all of the fancy graphics and tricks there are some basic things a good website should do. NASA has lots of websites – more than any other government agency. The agency’s Internet reach is truly global. But it gets this global reach in spite of itself. Its web presence is a jumbled […]

NASA OIG: Fiscal Year 2020 Federal Information Security Modernization Act Evaluation – An Agency Common System “… We found that NASA had not assessed the Agency common control entitled SI-04, Information System Monitoring, since April 2015. Moreover, the control was classified in 2015 as “other than satisfied,” but system security officials still had not taken appropriate action to address the control deficiency by developing either a POA&M or Risk-Based Decision […]

Solar Winds, Probably Hacked by Russia, Serves White House, Pentagon, NASA, Newsweek “Two unnamed sources told the outlet that the hackers entered U.S. systems through updates released by SolarWinds, a software company based in Austin, Texas that also provides services to the White House, Pentagon and NASA, according to their website. Additionally, the company provides services to the country’s leading telecommunications providers, as well as “more than 425 of the […]

Keith’s note: Do a Google search for “NASA search engine“. The first search result that comes up is NASA Multimedia Search last updated on 26 February 2006. The second result that comes up is Tools for searching last updated on 21 July 2005. Look on the left hand side of either page. Click on simple search, category search, or Advanced search and you get “404 The cosmic object you are […]

Keith’s 18 Nov update: NASA wants to transmit their stuff to you. But they really don’t want you to talk to their people about it. Once upon a time – actually for more than a decade – you could go to people.nasa.gov to find out how to contact a government employee at NASA. Not any more. Here is what the site looked like on 28 October 2020. You used to […]

Hearing link, Hearing on Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Information Technology Management, Policies, and Practices at NASA Prepared statements – Rep. Kendra Horn – Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson – Rep. Brian Babin – Jeff Seaton, Chief Information Officer (Acting) National Aeronautics and Space Administration – Diana L. Burley, Vice Provost for Research, American University – Paul K. Martin, Inspector General, National Aeronautics and Space Administration “Our concerns with NASA’s IT governance and […]

Keith’s note: When most people hear the phrase “space science” it is logical to expect that they think of “science” in “space”. Maybe its astronomy or planets. Maybe its studying how humans live in space. Perhaps its analyzing samples from another world or looking for life in the universe. It might even include looking down at Earth from space. But “space science” simply refers to “science” – and not any […]

OIG: NASA’s Policy and Practices Regarding the Use of Non-Agency Information Technology Devices “NASA is not adequately securing its networks from unauthorized access by IT devices. Although OCIO has deployed technologies to monitor unauthorized IT device connections, it has not fully implemented controls to remove or block these devices from accessing NASA’s networks and systems. The initial December 2019 target date for NASA to complete installation of these controls has […]

NASA Internal Memo: NASA’s Authorized Internal and External Collaboration Tools, NASA CIO “The NASA CIO has worked for the past several years to establish a consistent and modern set of tools to support both internal and external collaboration. While there is still work to do to support some of the more complex use-cases, such as sharing sensitive data with foreign partners, many others are met through Agency approved collaboration tools. […]

NASA CIO Agencywide Memo: Alert: Cyber Threats Significantly Increasing During Coronavirus Pandemic, NASA CIO “A new wave of cyber-attacks is targeting Federal Agency Personnel, required to telework from home, during the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. During the past few weeks, NASA’s Security Operations Center (SOC) mitigation tools have prevented success of these attempts. Here are some examples of what’s been observed in the past few days: – Doubling of email […]