NASA to enhance and improve the course on cybersecurity with new contract

In a recent announcement, NASA has stated that it is focusing on improving the longstanding cybersecurity issues that have been identified in a recent survey through a unified IT contract that was scheduled to publish a request for proposals this month. Besides, there were several attacks on NASA networks to steal critical information. NASA aims to enhance its ability to prevent, detect, and mitigate cyber-attacks by building a robust enterprise architecture.

The core framework or the IG links have become a severe threat as maintaining it requires cybersecurity skills. NASA, in recent years, has a fragmented approach to its IT security with multiple lines and authority. To date, the agency manages an online presence of 3,000 websites and 42,000 publicly accessible databases. NASA has also improved its cybersecurity posture as it has been subjected to more than 6,000 cyberattacks in the past four years, including phishing scams and malware.

NASA's posture exposes itself to a "higher-than-necessary risk" from cyber threats. It is reported that NASA will establish the most advanced enterprise architecture program to improve the effectiveness of its enterprise security architecture. It will also begin tracking metrics of IG security and will also conduct a cost assessment.