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.

Sept. 5, 2024

NSA, FBI, CISA, and Allies Issue Advisory about Russian Military Cyber Actors

FORT MEADE, Md. – The National Security Agency (NSA) joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and international allies in publishing the Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) “Russian Military Cyber Actors Target U.S. and Global Critical Infrastructure” to detail malicious activity used for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020.

Sept. 5, 2024

Cybersecurity is National Security

Cybersecurity is no longer a separate domain – it’s integrated into everything we do to keep the United States safe from foreign adversaries. As Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and others conduct cyberattacks on national security systems and the Defense Industrial Base, the National Security Agency is on the job, detecting attacks, defending networks, and distributing declassified intelligence to help private industry partners. NSA’s Director of Cybersecurity, Dave Luber, joins No Such Podcast to shine the light on how NSA cybersecurity contributes to national security. Learn from Marine Corps LtGen Jerry Carter about the value of having close civilian-military collaboration to keep our armed forces safe and our policymakers informed. From secure AI to #StopRansomware to PRC hacking and beyond, NSA’s experts work every day on cybersecurity challenges.
 

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Sept. 5, 2024

How We Found Bin Laden: The Basics of Foreign Signals Intelligence

Osama bin Laden helped plan the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 which killed nearly 3,000 Americans. To find him, the U.S. government had to put its best people on the job. Along with their counterparts across multiple agencies, experts at the National Security Agency answered the call. NSA generated foreign signals intelligence to help find, and ultimately eliminate, the terrorist leader. In the lead episode of No Such Podcast, learn how NSA helped find bin Laden through foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT), one of the Agency’s two core missions. NSA leaders demystify the foreign SIGINT cycle and how each step applied to the Osama bin Laden case. Learn from a counterterrorism expert who was in the room when the word came in that Osama bin Laden was Killed In Action. NSA’s foreign signals intelligence has informed United States policymakers for over seven decades.
 

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Sept. 3, 2024

NSA Director Appoints Sara Siegle as Chief, Strategic Communications

FORT MEADE, Md. – General Timothy D. Haugh, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), announced that Sara Siegle has been appointed as the NSA’s Chief, Strategic Communications and Senior Executive Advisor to the Board of Directors. In this role, Siegle will enhance the overall communications vision and strategy for the Agency, and will be responsible for leading a global workforce of communications professionals. Siegle previously served as NSA’s Reauthorization Lead for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Chief of the Authorities Integration Group. In these positions, she played a critical role in the recent reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA, while ensuring NSA's application of mission authorities was consistent with law and policy.