NSA News & Highlights

Oct. 3, 2024

What It’s Really Like to Work at NSA

What’s it like to come to work in a secure facility every day? What about the people – who even works at a spy agency? The answer: people just like you! Hear from two women who’ve chosen to make their careers at NSA. One is a computer scientist and the other is a chief of staff. They had different paths to get to NSA, but they’ve decided to stay for similar reasons. They discuss what it feels like to know that your work has meaning, no matter your role, because you’re helping defend the United States and protect national security. Learn about the deep expertise of the people of NSA and how they’re constantly learning.

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Oct. 2, 2024

NSA joins Australian Signals Directorate and Others in Promoting Six Principles of Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity

FORT MEADE, Md. – The National Security Agency (NSA) is joining the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD ACSC) and others to release the Cybersecurity Information Sheet (CSI), “Principles of Operational Technology Cyber Security,” to promote six principles that guide the creation and maintenance of a safe, secure critical infrastructure operational technology (OT) environment. The purpose of the guidance is to enhance cybersecurity methods to ensure the protection of critical infrastructure including water, energy, transportation, and other systems. 

Sept. 26, 2024

STEM Fest: Engineering Ideas Into Reality

Join the National Cryptologic Museum for the 10th Annual STEM Fest! Explore a world of discovery where science, technology, engineering and math come together!

Sept. 26, 2024

NSA Jointly Releases Guidance for Mitigating Active Directory Compromises

The National Security Agency (NSA) joins the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD ACSC) and others in releasing the Cybersecurity Technical Report (CTR), “Detecting and Mitigating Active Directory Compromises.” The guidance provides prevention and detection strategies for the most prevalent techniques used to target Active Directory (AD).

Sept. 26, 2024

The Cutting Edge of Classified: Research at NSA

How does NSA stay ahead of its foreign adversaries? Emerging technologies can have significant impacts on national security, further heightening the critical nature of NSA’s foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions. NSA researchers help defend the United States every day by focusing on what’s next. Learn from NSA’s Director of Research, Gil Herrera, about the strategy behind the largest in-house research group in the United States Intelligence Community. Learn about large language models (LLMs) from a leading expert in the field, and how this technology can help enable NSA to more effectively carry out its foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions. Understand how leading researchers, from mathematicians to computer scientists to engineers and beyond, contribute to national security.

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Sept. 19, 2024

The Women of NSA: Codemakers and Codebreakers


They cracked the Enigma machine and defeated Nazi Germany. They helped us stay a step ahead of the Soviet Union’s spies. They led cybersecurity modernizations to keep us safe. And today, they’re leading NSA efforts to defend the nation. These are the women of NSA.
Learn from a historian and a mathematician about the storied history of women’s contributions to the NSA mission and national security. From World War II through the Cold War to the present day, women have been critical contributors to NSA’s foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions.
 

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Sept. 18, 2024

NSA and Allies Issue Advisory about PRC-Linked Actors and Botnet Operations

FORT MEADE, Md. - The National Security Agency (NSA) joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), and international allies in releasing new information about People’s Republic of China (PRC)-linked cyber actors who have compromised internet-connected devices worldwide to create a botnet and conduct malicious activity.

Sept. 16, 2024

NSA Launches 11th Annual Codebreaker Challenge for 2024

FORT MEADE, Md. - The National Security Agency (NSA) is launching its annual Codebreaker Challenge, offering students from U.S.-based academic institutions the opportunity to explore real-world scenarios emulating the Intelligence Community’s classified work and preparing them to tackle national security concerns after their graduation. Students will compete against other schools to complete mission-oriented tasks designed to build their skills in reverse engineering, vulnerability research, cryptography, programming/scripting, and more.

Sept. 12, 2024

AI and the Future of National Security


Artificial intelligence (AI) is here, and it’s not going away. What threats does it pose to United States national security? What opportunities does it present as we seek to maintain an advantage over our foreign adversaries? Two of NSA’s leading AI experts join No Such Podcast to break down NSA’s approach to AI security, responsible AI, and AI governance. NSA’s Chief Responsible AI Officer, Vinh Nguyen, explains how NSA has been researching AI and what uses we’ve found for it already. Chief of the AI Security Center, Tahira Mammen, shares what NSA is doing to help secure AI deployment. Learn how these experts tackle the unknown dimension of AI and how they’re making sure NSA is helping the United States stay a step ahead through our foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions.
 

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Sept. 9, 2024

Headline Puzzle: September 2024

The Headline Puzzle is a monthly feature that was started in 1964 by Paul Derthick, a longtime research analyst in NSA’s Operations Organization, as an interesting way to keep his mind sharp outside of his cryptanalytic work. Each Headline Puzzle contains five headlines from recent daily newspapers. Each of the five is a different monoalphabetic substitution, and all five are derived from the same mixed alphabet at different settings against itself. A complete solution includes recovering the plaintext of each HEADLINE and three key words, the SETTING, the KEY and the HAT.