The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced that it experienced a data breach in October.
In an internal memo sent to employees, the agency disclosed that its “cybersecurity personnel began investigating a possible compromise of NASA servers,” and that they had “determined that information from one of the servers containing Social Security numbers and other PII data of current and former NASA employees may have been compromised.”
The memo went on to explain that the investigation is ongoing and “will take time,” but did not provide specifics as to the number of potentially affected employees, or the reasoning behind waiting two months to disclose the breach.
NASA has yet to address inquiries from the press about the breach.
Federal agencies have been a consistent target for cyberattacks in recent years; a recent study showed that 71% of cybersecurity professionals in their employ have reported breaches. The same report showed a 300% increase in reported federal breaches between 2016 and 2018.
