TOP SECRET – NSA’s Top Ten Technical Security Challenges

Not surprisingly in today’s world, National Security Systems are fundamentally dependent on commercial products and infrastructure, or interconnect with other systems that are. This creates new and significant common ground between the Department of Defense and broader U.S. Government and homeland security needs. More and more, we find that protecting National Security Systems demands teaming with public and private institutions to raise the information assurance level of products and services more broadly. If done correctly, this is a win-win situation that benefits the whole spectrum of Information Technology (IT) users, from warfighters and policymakers, to federal, state, and local governments, to the operators of critical infrastructure and major arteries of commerce. The “Top Ten Technical Security Challenges” reflect major focus areas for the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) which may also present opportunities for industry.

NSA’s Top Ten Technical Security Challenges:

1. Mobility, wireless networking, and secure mobile services
2. Software assurance
3. Virtualization, Separation, and Trusted Platforms
4. Cloud computing
5. Intrusion analysis and adversary tradecraft
6. Platform Integrity – Compliance assurance – Continuous Monitoring
7. Real-time situational awareness and CNO sync
8. End client security
9. Metrics and measurement for IA posture
10. Commercial architectures for assistance