NSA quietly awards $10 billion cloud contract to Amazon, drawing protest from Microsoft

[Zorro]

Source: Washington Post

The National Security Agency has quietly awarded a contract worth up to $10 billion to Amazon Web Services, setting off another high-stakes fight among rival tech giants over national security contract dollars.

On July 21 the Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft filed a formal bid protest with the Government Accountability Office, an independent federal agency that handles contract disputes, after Microsoft applied for the opportunity and was rejected. A decision is expected by Oct. 29.

The contract award comes on the heels of a protracted and bitter dispute over a Pentagon contract, also worth up to $10 billion, which was given to Microsoft before getting bogged down in lawsuits and ultimately scrapped. If the NSA can fight through an often bruising bid protest process, the new contract could extend Amazon’s lead in the fast-growing cloud computing market where rivals are gaining on it.

The NSA has offered few details about the purpose of the contract. An NSA spokesman said the agency had awarded a contract for “cloud computing support services,” but declined to elaborate or specify who won it. “The agency will respond to the protest in accordance with appropriate federal regulations,” the spokesman said.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/11/amazon-nsa-contract/

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I sure hope the NSA knows what it's doing. Cloud computing just seems to me to have inherent vulnerabilities capable of being exploited by various state and NGO actors.

[Ford_Prefect]

1. Cloud computing has inherent vulnerabilities which are being exploited. Those won't evaporate just

because it's an NSA contract. The first time there's an oops will be over something dangerous to have in the wild. (Oh shit! NSA already had that happen without the cloud). There are solid reasons why such work is conducted by state agencies in other countries.

This is about payback/kickback to the IT world outside govt. just like an MIC arms system payoff. The only reason I can see that might explain it would be to facilitate NSA access to inner workings and accounts in the "Cloud". The contract and fees being essentially a bribe to open the door.

If you consider that we are being told about a supposed contract for services by a very secretive agency it begs the question of why we were told at all. It raises the likelihood that the money we've heard about and the supposed service to be provided are probably NOT what is going on. This is cover for public funds spent on something else. These people NEVER tell Congress or the public anything like the truth. It's not in their nature to do it.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. I am more concerned about doubles (foreign friendly actors) within the IC.

I expect there is a chance this is part of data collection by NSA.
There are apparatus limiting and/or stopping data flow which act as a one way gateway.

As far as a risk assessment I am concerned most about the operation by AWS giving potential physical access to those who aren't sufficiently "reliable". If this infrastructure becomes part of critical daily operations, I would be concerned about verifying the resilience of failover within a multi-redundant environment. Would an Amazon employee be capable of sabotage as simple as effecting a power fail during a critical time?

A simple example would be NSA's Bluffdale location has its own internal power generation (as backup) since it consumes up to 65 megawatts.

[Ford_Prefect]

7. I share both of those concerns regarding FF's and potential failover due to Amazon.

I suspect that NSA could be arranging to listen to the inbound and outbound data prior to any warrants which is SOP for them. I understand they need to assess how data moves and who is moving it. I accept that they will do whatever they see as expedient since that is their mandate.

I grew up around some of these people (esp. Navy Intel) and have no doubts about how they think when it comes to the rules we imagine apply. My concern in this case is that 10 B is small change for MIC and Intel contracting for major systems. If they are publicly commenting on that contract you can be sure the numbers are a fraction of the costs they anticipate. Likewise we can be sure that the last thing it is encumbered for is a legit Cloud basis for NSA, although there may be one built.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. I suspect the 10B is for setup/non-recurring infrastructure development.

There is likely $ involved in integration, staffing and operation an order of magnitude higher.

[Ford_Prefect]

9. Word!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. And now that I think about it...

...since Amazon and Blue Origin are owned by the same guy, it's not a big stretch to think that NSA and NRO might be working together on an orbital platform operated by Blue combining several intelligence missions having data archived by AWS.

Last December USAF terminated programs with Blue, Northrup Grumman and United Launch Alliance in favor of SpaceX. You can be sure all the eggs aren't in the same basket. The text of the termination letters were not released to the public.

[yaesu]

2. the call it the penis rocket contract. nt

[IronLionZion]

3. Anyone curious why intelligence agencies use cloud

it's because they use tremendous amounts of dynamic unstructured "big data" that can't be stored through traditional means. The size and scope and continuous evolution of the data make it a weak target for attackers to gain anything useful.

Only once it's been run through algorithms, sorted, filtered, analyzed, etc. does it offer anything useful and those reports are stored somewhere else that is highly classified.

Amazon and Microsoft are often the only ones who can handle the size and the advanced security requirements of defense and intelligence agencies.

[ripcord]

5. Windows isn't a good recommendation for Microsoft security

[Steelrolled]

6. I think the NSA will continue to have

very large internal computing capabilities. Not everything the NSA does is overly sensitive, and I expect there will be criteria on what kind of applications will be run in the public cloud.

[VarryOn]

11. I trust Bezos way more than Microsoft...

I'm good with this.

I wouldn't get 3-4 Amazon deliveries a week to my house if didnt trust Bezos.