Federal Cybersecurity Best Practices Study: Information Security Continuous Monitoring

Abstract

This study documents the successful work by NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) Security Team in thwarting the cybersecurity challenges posed by an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). Through a combination of initiative and creativity by the NASA EOS Security Team and their use of sophisticated software for continuous monitoring which could adapt to changing needs on-the-fly, the team prevented the agency’s information system security from being breached following the highly publicized hack of RSA which compromised a key component of the agency’s protocol for authenticating users.

Keywords: FISMA, regulation, cybersecurity, continuous monitoring, Advanced Persistent Threat, NASA, best practices