NSA | The Contracting Education Academy

January 16, 2018 By cs

Former NSA contractor admits to stealing confidential documents

A former National Security Agency contractor at the center of one of several pending leak cases has pleaded guilty to one of 20 counts he faces for removing classified information from the agency and storing those documents in his home for decades.

Harold Martin III, 52, was arrested in August 2016 and later indicted on 20 counts of willful retention of national defense information. According to the indictment, over the course of 23 years working as a contractor for the intelligence community, Martin took documents from the agencies he was working for and kept them in his Maryland home, some of which included top secret and sensitive compartmented information.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/01/former-nsa-contractor-admits-stealing-confidential-documents/144956/

Background on this story can be found in this 2016 New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/us/harold-martin-nsa.html

December 4, 2017 By cs

The ‘huge’ hole in the government’s Russian software ban

The Trump administration’s order barring certain Russian software from government networks doesn’t fully cover one troubling vulnerability — the teeming ranks of government contractors.

That omission could leave open gateways for hackers looking to pilfer government secrets, cybersecurity specialists warn, something that has reportedly happened in recent years with contractors from the CIA and the NSA. But legal experts say the government has only limited ability to require contractors to uproot Kaspersky Lab’s products from their computers.

“It’s a huge area of risk, especially with some of the recent breaches at the NSA and the CIA where it was clear that these contractors were the source of it,” said Trevor Rudolph, the former head of an OMB team that helps agencies improve their cyber defenses.

Matt Keller, who advises government clients on digital security programs as a vice president at GuidePoint, dubbed the issue a “moderate to high risk” for federal agencies.

It’s impossible to quantify the risk exactly, but hundreds of thousands of federal contractors hold top secret clearances.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/24/the-huge-hole-in-the-governments-russian-software-ban-259473

November 10, 2017 By cs

Where should agencies look for innovation?

Startups and government may sound like an unlikely pairing. But according to intelligence workers, they’re the perfect match when it comes to innovation.

“Innovation is really happening down at the lower levels at the startup companies,” said John Kammerer, the National Security Agency’s technical director of high performance computing solutions, during a Nov. 2 panel discussion at NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference in Washington, D.C.

Tech moves fast, Kammerer said, and while the incumbent companies still have a lot to offer in the way of government contracts, they too are leaning on startups to develop components. The proof, he added, is when the traditional big government contractors scoop up emerging companies.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2017/11/03/nsa-innovation-startups.aspx

October 30, 2017 By cs

Massive classified NSA contract under protest

One of the National Security Agency’s most important technology contracts — secretly awarded to AT&T weeks ago — is under protest by one of the losing bidders, DXC Technology.

The contract in question is part of the NSA’s classified Groundbreaker program, which dates back to a 2001 effort to outsource its IT operations originally valued at more than $5 billion but grew so large NSA recently opted to break the new contract into three separate pieces.

NSA awarded the first contract of the new Groundbreaker recompete to tech firm CSRA in September for $2.4 billion. Because of the protest, the Government Accountability Office will review NSA’s award of the second Groundbreaker contract to AT&T, which sources tell Nextgov is valued at less than $2 billion.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cloud-computing/2017/10/massive-classified-nsa-contract-under-protest/142078

October 10, 2017 By cs

Judge denies bail for accused NSA leaker, citing security risk

A woman charged with leaking U.S. secrets must remain jailed until her trial, a federal judge ruled last Thursday, saying her release would pose an “ongoing risk to national security.”

Reality Winner, 25, is a former Air Force linguist who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency at a facility in Augusta, Georgia, when she was charged in June with copying a classified U.S. report and mailing it to a news organization.

Winner’s defense attorneys asked a judge to reconsider releasing her on bail after her trial date was postponed from October to next March. They argued Winner had no prior criminal history and served admirably in the military. Winner’s mother in Kingsville, Texas, planned to move to Georgia to ensure her daughter obeyed any terms of her bond.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fifthdomain.com/civilian/fbi-doj/2017/10/05/judge-denies-bail-for-accused-nsa-leaker-citing-security-risk/

A former National Security Agency contractor at the center of one of several pending leak cases has pleaded guilty to one of 20 counts he faces for removing classified information from the agency and storing those documents in his home for decades.

The Trump administration’s order barring certain Russian software from government networks doesn’t fully cover one troubling vulnerability — the teeming ranks of government contractors.

Startups and government may sound like an unlikely pairing. But according to intelligence workers, they’re the perfect match when it comes to innovation.

One of the National Security Agency’s most important technology contracts — secretly awarded to AT&T weeks ago — is under protest by one of the losing bidders, DXC Technology.

A woman charged with leaking U.S. secrets must remain jailed until her trial, a federal judge ruled last Thursday, saying her release would pose an “ongoing risk to national security.”

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