The Challenge:
NASA required in depth cyber defense and IT security to protect systems and information critical to human spaceflight missions. Their legacy infrastructure was outdated and vulnerable, but had to remain operational. Meanwhile, cybersecurity efforts were fragmented across the organization and decentralized, leading to inconsistencies and inefficiencies. In addition, as cybersecurity policies were evolving, NASA needed to adapt to remain compliant and protected against frequent cyberattacks.
Our Solution:
To address the challenges, during our performance at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Cambridge provided Assessment and Authorization services, cyber threat intelligence and analysis, security engineering, system vulnerability management, and incident response. We also supported operations and maintenance, management and policy, protection and defense, collection and operations, investigation, and secure provisioning.
Results:
During our performance at NASA, Cambridge flawlessly managed and mitigated multiple cybersecurity incidents. This included our leading role helping NASA through the major SolarWinds cyberattack in 2020, for which we received the JSC Director’s Innovation Award. Cambridge also received another JSC Director’s Innovation Award for improving the quality and timeliness of vulnerability identification/detection and providing mitigation/resolution for deficiencies. The quality of Cambridge’s solution exceeded expectations in terms of design and throughput capability as compared to the previous method. The new system eliminated choke points, improving responsiveness by 50 percent.
