5 ms·
How the JPL works to secure its missions from adversaries
- foobarbecue 7y agoNobody says "the JPL." It's just "JPL".
- ajaviaad 7y agoTechcrunch says the JPL
- foobarbecue 7y agoHaha, good point. I meant they did that in error.
- oso2k 7y agoWe “JPLers” call it “JPL” or “The Lab”.
- DailyHN 7y agoThe Space Force
- Stierlitz 7y ago“there's a red-thingy moving toward the green-thingy .. I think we're the green-thingy.”
- TimTheTinker 7y agoFascinating article! One of the most interesting details is that they create logical network graphs, then query them using Datalog to logically quantify threats to each subsystem given access to a particular area. The example given in the article is querying all possible attack paths to all systems from the cafeteria WiFi network.
- saber6 7y agoAs a network architect I'm kind of surprised they couldn't answer basic questions such as "can someone sitting in a general user access segment (eg Cafeteria) access critical resource X by default?" This is a fairly standard infosec method already in use for a long time (defense in depth, enclave-based security architectures, etc). Not knocking them - JPL are wonderful people. If I had to guess they did not have funding for this prior, got caught (embarrassed) and now are correctly allocating resources to deal with the issue. Good news!
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThe trick is to not let a crisis go to waste, and use it to get the people and dollars you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to justify.
- xenihn 7y agoMy girlfriend's family has a bunch of software engineers who worked on various space programs as employees for the major defense contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon), and they had nothing but bad things to say about NASA software engineers, and working with NASA in general. Maybe things have changed in the past 16 years, though. Could also just be typical private vs. public rivalry.
- oso2k 7y agoProfessional rivalries. But IMO, NASA engineers are some of the best and many approach the “scary smart” or renaissance levels of breath & depth of intelligence. Also, on the whole, at least at JPL, our engineers were some of the most ethical in terms of personal accountability and corporate accountability. Fewer ethics violations and higher accuracy in identifying and reporting ethics violations especially as compared to the rest of the industry.
- exdsq 7y agoIs there a general sort of background for a JPL engineer? Do they tend to come in straight after university or do they join later in their careers? It must be fun to work on such critical systems with so little margin for error.
- Stierlitz 7y ago“a spike in CPU usage might indicate a compromised server being used for cryptocurrency mining.” What's abnormal about that statement is that it is now considered normal.
- thrower123 7y agoA generation ago, it would probably have indicated that engineers were goofing off playing Doom...
- apawloski 7y agoHere is the NASA Inspector General’s report on JPL cybersecurity practices from last year: https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-19-022.pdf https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-19-022.pdf
- jvanderbot 7y agoAwesome! I worked lately with Arun on a proposal to do some R&D on this topic. Great to see it getting some sunlight. But man, talking about "the JPL" reads awkwardly.
- supernova87a 7y agoThey lost me at "the" JPL.
- ycombonator 7y agoAll their stuff got exfiltrated to China long time ago. It’s too late compadres.
- cat199 7y ago> Each mission at JPL is like its own semi-independent startup. We as people used to call these 'projects'.. I fail to see how a funded mission within a gov't organization which will never sell anything is anything at all like a small company bootstrapping a commercial product..
- astrea 7y agoDidn't they get hacked by a raspberry pi the other day?