National Security Agency - The Black Vault

2000s
2000s
Looking Ahead
While future challenges and technical advances
remain unknown, NSA must maintain a creative
and versatile approach to its mission.
Today’s most pressing threats include cyber
terrorism, computer hacking, and debilitating
computer viruses. Adversaries are constantly
trying to steal America’s digital information and
compromise U.S. security. NSA protects both
information and information technology that are
essential to U.S. interests; defends critical U.S.
and Allied networks against attack; and helps to
identify and correct vulnerabilities in technology
and operations. Together, these activities –
providing information assurance and enabling
computer network operations, along with the
collection of foreign signals intelligence – form
the core of NSA’s mission.
momentum in the 1990s, NSA responded by
working with the private sector to develop
secure cell phones (CipherTAC-2000, Sectera-
GSM and QSEC-800), as well as a secure modem
to enable laptop access to SECRET networks.
With increased commercial use of Personal
Digital Assistants (PDAs), NSA developed the
“Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic
Device” (SME PED), a hand-held communication
device with Type 1 encryption. This device
provided secure voice and protected portable
access to SECRET networks enabling customers
to send and receive classified and unclassified
voice calls as well as email and web browse on
government networks.
In response to rapid technology and
environmental changes, growing commercial
use of Suite B cryptography, and increased
customer expectations for consumer-like
products, the Information Assurance Directorate
initiated a significant two-pronged change
to its business model. First, NSA renewed its
engagement strategy with the private sector
by updating and publishing a set of Protection
Profiles for commercial products/technology to
raise the level of security. Second, NSA shifted
to a commercial technology first approach,
moving away from building government-owned
unique devices and infrastructure. Under this
innovative process, called Commercial Solutions
for Classified (CSfC), NSA supports the use of
composed and layered secure standards-based
commercial devices and services to create
trusted devices and systems that can safeguard
national security information and systems.
General Keith B. Alexander, USA,
Commander, CYBERCOM, Director NSA/Chief CSS
Barack Obama. When foreign intelligence
malware infected U.S. military networks in
2008, NSA expertise played an critical role in
Operation BUCKSHOT YANKEE, the network
defenders’ successful campaign to mitigate the
computer security breach.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates considered
all of these experiences, and acknowledged
NSA’s expertise in the field, when he elected
to co-locate Cyber Command with NSA at Fort
Meade, and chose General Alexander as its first
Commander. Although a separate Department of
Defense organization, Cyber Command is able
to leverage NSA’s talented workforce, expertise,
and record of innovation when necessary to
accomplish its mission.
NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center
In 2004 NSA Director General Hayden established
the NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center (NTOC)
as a joint Information Assurance and SIGINT
initiative to assess and report on foreign threats
against U.S. information systems. While NTOC’s
methods have changed and will continue to change
with technology, its mission remains faithful to
General Hayden’s vision: “to look for new, creative,
and collaborative ways to leverage our industrialstrength
SIGINT and IA capabilities to live on the
net always, shape the net sometimes, own the net
when needed, and protect the net from those who
wish to do the Nation harm.”
Recent world events and cyber’s unprecedented
growth necessitated a change in the way
NTOC conducted this mission. In 2010 NTOC
transformed its operations center into a more
robust construct, providing maximum situational
awareness of global network activities 24/7, 365
days a year.
Supporting Wireless Communications
The NSA Information Assurance Team has
a long and successful history of customer
engagement and industry collaboration to fulfill
its responsibility for the security of National
Security Systems. As the mobile market gained
The NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center provides situational awareness
on any adversarial attempt to exploit and attack our networks.
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