Grant Schneider, federal chief information security officer, said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will start implementing the security operations center as a service in fiscal 2021 as part of its role as a quality service management office, Federal News Network reported Friday.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designated DHS in May as a QSMO for cybersecurity and SOC-as-a-service is one of the three shared services focus areas of the department.
“We are looking for a couple ways to do the service provisioning. It could be another government agency such as the Department of Justice or DHS providing those services,” Schneider told the network’s Ask the CIO.
“DHS also is working closely with the General Services Administration so that we can contract for some service capabilities there and bring industry in as well. The QSMO role of DHS is to make sure that the level of service and standards being met on all of those capabilities will be the same. We do know industry will be a significant player in this arena.”
He also shared his insights on a revitalized CyberStat process, which could be used to hold agencies accountable for transitioning to shared services and meeting the objectives of SOC consolidation and maturation.
“Our traditional, in-depth one-on-one engagements with agencies is certainly still on our list. However, we also are trying to do a little more — and this is where SOC may be an excellent opportunity for us — is we are bringing agencies together to discuss a particular topic and have more lessons learned from various agencies and DHS to provide additional expertise,” Schneider said.
