Although the NSA is typically depicted as the most super-secret of federal agencies, it does post valuable reports on security best practices on its . And Neal Ziring, the NSA's technical director of the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), recently agreed to an in-depth interview.

What is information assurance for the NSA?

"Information Assurance for us is the ability for our customers, national security customers, to know that their information is only accessible to those who need it, is accessible to those who need it when they need it, that it has integrity - it hasn't been altered - and more recently, cyber defense.

"We have certain responsibilities under National Security Directive 42 and we provide cryptography for the community, certain types of defensive services, security guidance, security analysis, security architecture and engineering services, and we perform key management on the behalf of the community."