NSA Outsourced System Administrators Pose High Insider Threat, Potentially Targeted by Foreign Intelligence Services

The passage highlights a concrete vulnerability in the NSA’s reliance on civilian, contractor‑staffed system administrators who have privileged access and can bypass security controls. It suggests a s NSA system administrators are largely civilian contractors, not directly hired by the agency. Admins possess privileged abilities: password bypass and data exfiltration to external devices. Threat of