Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research (LACR)

 

NSA's Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research is the U.S. government's premier cybersecurity research and design center; our cybersecurity experts conduct and sponsor research in the technologies and techniques which will secure America's information systems of tomorrow. Our researchers aren't just inventing products-we're trying to invent a safer future.

Built upon a foundation of five decades of experience designing against threats from the most determined adversaries in the world, the Advanced Cybersecurity Research Lab's extensive in-house research program now ranges from cryptographic algorithms to photonics, from operating systems like SELinux, to advanced intrusion detection tools. We complement the deep experience of our workforce with close and creative partnerships in high-technology-with industry, academia, government, and with colleagues scattered around the globe. We guarantee our problem set will put your talents and training to the test. Come apprentice with the masters and help us make the world safer through cybersecurity.

Our Research staff comprises chiefly of graduate-degreed mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, and physical scientists. In applying that academic foundation to the cybersecurity mission, we have transcended the limits of our disciplines to become a community of cybersecurity designers and researchers. We'll help you push the limits of your expertise to tackle the hard problems inherent in designing protection mechanisms that can stand the test of time.

At NSA, you have the potential to make much more than new products; you have the opportunity to make an enormous impact and leave your mark as a technical legend. Our inventions and patents offer notoriety, publishing opportunities, and sometimes even royalties for our workforce. Your work will also provide industry with building blocks to push the state-of-the-art in commercial products and help millions of people across the nation, now and in the future.

If being a designer of visionary capabilities-capabilities whose realization requires cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions-interests you, consider joining NSA in our quest to protect the nation's critical information from an unfriendly world.

For more information about career opportunities, please visit the Careers section of our website.

The Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research conducts in-house research in the following focus areas:

  • Cryptography
  • Cryptographic Infrastructure and Standards
  • High-confidence Software and Systems (HCSS)
  • Authentication
  • High-Speed Security Solutions
  • Secure Wireless Multimedia
  • Technical Security
  • Attack, Sensing, Warning, and Response
  • Research Integration
  • Trusted Computing

Security-Enhanced Linux and Security Enhancements for Android

 
On December 22, 2000, NSA released its first open source software - Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux). In an unprecedented move, NSA made a downloadable prototype of its security-enhanced version of the Linux operating system (SELinux) available to the public on NSA.gov. This decision highlighted the overarching need for more secure operating systems.
 
In five years, SELinux had become standard in industry-leading systems. Its success paved the way for additional NSA-collaborated open source projects, including notable successes like Ghidra and Accumulo.
 
NSA similarly raised the bar for mobile operating systems security by identifying and addressing critical gaps in Android's security. In 2012, NSA publically released an open source reference implementation of Security Enhancements (SE) for Android.
 
These security enhancements were adopted by Samsung a year later, shipping in millions of devices in 2013. That same year, Google included it as a default in the Android 4.3 release, leading to adoption in all future Android-based devices. Each subsequent release has built upon the security enhancements and today over 99% of the 3+ billion active Android devices have SE fully enabled.