“Long before I came here, I caught a security threat. There was a covert channel on a network… a signal within a signal. The team sent out an alert and said, ‘Hey, we’re picking up rogue traffic through a phantom signal out here.’ You never know what information can come through a covert channel. Think of it as a hidden tunnel you can smuggle information through.
“At the time, I was new to that organization, tasked with finding that threat. I literally spent all day analyzing data and found a rogue network device that was sending information out of a government agency. I documented the findings and followed the procedures to remove the threat. That became a big kudos for me in my career. I earned an impact award from the Commanding General.
“When you do something like that, it’s very rewarding. It’s a confidence builder. I didn’t guess, I took everything I learned and put it into real-time use… and that was the result.
“When it comes to [the Hubble Space Telescope], we’re very secure. The biggest security threat we’ve caught lately is the Log4J that made national headlines. This is where your sense of urgency comes into play…You have to understand what this threat does, how it functions, and how it affects the mission.
“Catching these threats is almost like a detective exercise. You have to use different clues, follow the trail, isolate what you know, and find the solutions. Sometimes it can be a minor incident, but other times it can be a lot more critical than people understand.”
– Clifford Timpson, Principle Security Advisor for the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA Goddard
Image Credit: NASA / Taylor Mickal
Interviewer: NASA / Tahira Allen