When the U.S. government partially shut down in December, furloughing almost all NASA employees for 35 days, missed paychecks and stalled science weren’t the only issues NASA had to worry about. The shutdown also threatened the agency’s cybersecurity, NASA officials said at a post-shutdown town hall meeting Jan. 29.
“NASA is one of the — it is the most attacked agency in the federal government when it comes to cybersecurity,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a room full of NASA employees at the town hall, which took place at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“Across the world there are governments that are very, very interested in what we’re doing, because technology ultimately determines the balance of power on Earth, and we are doing things that are very, very advanced technology,” Bridenstine said. “There are people who would love to use it not for the benefit of humankind, but for their own power purposes.”