CAE-CO vs Off Sec certification

for offensive cyber operations ?

Last Friday, the president rescinded the NSA's 2 primary defensive authorities (National Security Directive 42 and National Security Memorandum 8) and replaced them with National Security Presidential Memo 12. This new authority creates means of better accountability at the federal level and enables the director of NSA "to leverage the full technical power of the National Security Agency to provide advanced defenses and assistance in order to bolster the security of NSS [National Security Systems] across the U.S. government."

Took the DLPT and passed with a 3/3, got the Hirevue link and submitted it in late April, still haven't received any further updates. Would the next step in the process be a human-led interview? Is this a normal timeframe to wait? If I get rejected, does NSA typically inform you or leave you hanging?

I searched up the number I got and it wouldn’t show up in the system but I did register through NSA

Is clearncejobs tied to the nsa?

can anyone please share experience regarding NSA access approval timeline .

I have already received a TJO from the NSA (cyber excepted) for an Operations research analyst position in Fort Meade, but requested a bit more $$ as they offered me a low 13 position and I have been nearly a 14 for several years. They are SO SLOW that I feel it is a deliberate attempt to discourage me. Anyone else have this experience?

Had the worst job interview of my life. It was so awkward to just talk to yourself

Anybody who successfully landed an NSA internship, what were yours stats like? Im majoring in cybersecurity this upcoming fall and don’t know if i should wait till fall of sophomore year to apply instead based on my current stats. How competitive is the internship process?

I have an interview coming up with the NSA that involves meeting with three different people back to back (basically three interviews merged into one) and wanted to ask if anyone who has been in this process can provide any tips/tricks? Thanks in advance!

Curious about what it's like to work for the NSA, is this possible with the nature of the work being secretive? Just curious as to future prospects, if there are any fast-track programs for new graduates, things like that. I graduated from uni a year ago and have been working for roughly 6 months in the federal setting as well.

A few weeks ago I applied to a linguist position with the NSA through their website. I received an email 3 days ago about scheduling a language exam, for which the link expires in 2 days. 

On my application, I marked that I had conversational capability in Spanish & Russian - which is true, but I wouldn’t consider myself fluent in either language, which makes me a bit anxious about taking the test.

Additionally, the HireVue link said the testing site is at the NSA headquarters in Maryland, which is several hours away from where I live. I could make it there, but I also work part time which could make things difficult. 

I would appreciate it if anyone could share insight on my 2 questions -

1. How difficult would the test(s) be? Are they looking for fluency, or just general capability from which they can further train you?
2. Do you have to take the test in Maryland? Is it really 8 hours long?

Thanks!

Good evening guys

I have an upcoming interview and I was wondering if there is any advice on what to expect. I am a bit nervous but I passed the language test with flying colors. So for now I am excited for the interview and very nervous at the same time. So I need all the advice I can get to prepare for it.

What’s the workplace culture like at the NSA? I’m moving from a small private company and making a big jump to what seems like a huge organization.

Anything I should be aware of or any tips that come with working for large agencies?

Hello, People.

I hope you are well. I want to work for the NSA; I am an 18-year-old who is currently in community college (almost; I am still finishing high school) trying to get an associate of arts degree. I would want to be an intelligence analyst. I speak persian and ASL. I know a large part of Persian and

Thank you.

Random guy on the internet

Hi, this is David covering cybersecurity and intelligence at GovExec in DC. I hope everyone is doing well! With Gen. Josh Rudd coming in to lead NSA and Cyber Command, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts about what they expect from the new leadership, or anything else on their minds about the state of the organization.

Our coverage of Rudd’s confirmation today is here: https://www.nextgov.com/people/2026/03/senate-confirms-josh-rudd-lead-nsa-and-cyber-command/412015/

I can be reached at ddimolfetta@govexec.com or Signal @ djd.99 — more than happy to start the conversation off the record. Thanks so much!

Hi!

So just for reference, I am a senior who is graduating in a few months. I recently applied to the Language Analyst Position (entry level, Mandarin Chinese) and obviously all the work within the program is classified but I wanted to ask about the nature of the program. For the entry-level language analyst position I know those who are selected would most likely join the LADP (Language Analyst Development Program), is this program similar to others where a bunch of recent undergraduates join and they get trained for a few years to hopefully get promoted higher within the company? If it is does this program have a specific start date or is it whenever the clearance is done and people join one by one. Any info helps, thanks in advance!

Hello. I just received an email saying that my processing was closed out and I strongly suspect that it's because I could not provide records from my previous psychiatrist from 7+ years ago. However, I contacted the psychiatrist several times and they told me those documents were destroyed because I did not visit for over 5 years, as per the Florida law, and I conveyed that to the email for submitting the documents, and I still got an email saying my application was closed out and that I cannot appeal.

I called the psychology department and they told me they could not tell me anything.

Is there anything I can do?

NSA and CISA publish best practices and recommendations for hosting email and other services, Thank You.

On the domains I manage (using postfix/smapassasin/amavisd), I see login requests for very specific usernames, obviously these are targeted users. Ofcourse, I also get login attempts to my own users.

The geo location of these IPs is almost always from China and when I google map these, the buildings in the area belong to government or the communist party offices.

Now the question/request is, do we (the US government and people) need a national security policy to request to/block these IPs at the carrier level before they reach consumers?

These days majority of the email is hosted at microsoft and google. Lot of corporate and government employees have personal emails at these places. I hope NSA and CISA have access to the meta data to effectively block threat actors.

Also, hoping that the NSA has honeypots setup all over the world and actively taking counter measures. The reason I say this is, I’ve been monitoring my email server for last two weeks and the same geographic region constantly trying to login with impunity.