Much of the NSA’s most prized intelligence data may be moving to the cloud. (amazon, bezos)

Nextgov ^ | 8-10-21 | Frank Konkel

[dynachrome]

The National Security Agency has awarded a secret cloud computing contract worth up to $10 billion to Amazon Web Services, Nextgov has learned.

The contract is already being challenged. Tech giant Microsoft filed a bid protest on July 21 with the Government Accountability Office two weeks after being notified by the NSA that it had selected AWS for the contract.

The contract’s code name is “WildandStormy,” according to protest filings, and it represents the second multibillion-dollar cloud contract the U.S. intelligence community—made up of 17 agencies, including the NSA—has awarded in the past year.

In November, the CIA awarded its C2E contract, potentially worth tens of billions of dollars, to five companies—AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM—that will compete for specific task orders for certain intelligence needs.

Details on the NSA’s newly awarded cloud contract are sparse, but the acquisition appears to be part of the NSA’s attempt to modernize its primary classified data repository, the Intelligence Community GovCloud.

[dynachrome]

What could go wrong?

[Wuli]

All the easier for it to be hacked.

[rktman]

Yup. Direct feed to the chi-nuh folks?

[rarestia]

Having worked as a contractor for the Federal government, I can tell you: EVERYTHING.

[Chode]

why not send it directly to china?

[DesertRhino]

This is not “national security” information. It is information gathered almost solely to empower the globalist oligarchy headquartered in DC by suppressing INTERNAL challenges.

Amazon, Bezos, and other big tech are 100% on board with this effort. So essentially, this is keeping it “in house”.

[dynachrome]

I wonder if “most prized” means hillary’s death list, weiner’s laptop contents or humper biden’s laptop contents?

[Obadiah]

Completely agree.

[Zathras]

Much, much easier

[ProudDeplorable]

This isn’t going to end well.

[srmanuel]

Considering the NSA has already been hacked and most of the most powerful hacking tool were release on the dark web, not much could go wrong...

A number of the most recent Ransomware attacks were done with tools stolen from the NSA by hackers...

When you at or near the bottom things might be looking up with this project

[z3n]

most priced intelligence... on the cloud???

[ClearCase_guy]

why not send it directly to china?

Too many DVDs. This makes it easier for them.

[Chode]

right

[wildcard_redneck]

Why worry, the ChiComs have already stolen all of the illegal data of Americans that the NSA so conveniently collected for them.

This is just the logical next step where our craptastic federal governemnt is sharing it online with the world in real time.

[cgbg]

The data will be perfectly safe there because Bezos loves privacy!

Bwahahahahahaha.

[Bearshouse]

Love your tag line.

I would add, there is no DMZ either.

[Campion]

Unless the alternative was a system completely insulated from the Internet, the cloud is not necessarily any less secure. It may be more secure, because you can get a bunch of security "goodies" in the cloud just by checking a box and paying for them, whereas in a system you build yourself you actually have to research that stuff, buy it, and set it up. The cloud can also automate system patching to fix issues (incl. security holes) ASAP.

Bad programmers can build insecure systems anywhere, and good programmers can build secure systems anywhere.

However, any system connected to the network can potentially be hacked. The only perfectly secure system is one that's stuck in a closet and powered down. (It's also useless ... but it is secure.)

[mass55th]

Right where China wants it.

[Chode]

i wish there was