The House Armed Services Committee’s intelligence, emerging threats and capabilities subpanel has released a draft of its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would direct the Department of Defense (DoD) to address issues concerning cyber workforce and information technology-related assets, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday.
The proposed NDAA would ask the DoD’s office of the chief information officer to work with the CIOs of the country's service branches to come up with standardized processes to determine duplicative hardware and software licenses.
“The committee believes the Department would benefit from an established process for auditing software and hardware inventories,” according to the draft bill.
The Pentagon’s CIO office should also study a National Security Agency (NSA) program that permits employees to use up to 140 hours of paid time off to take part in NSA-backed cyber education initiatives in local communities.
“This would explicitly authorize select Department of Defense civilians who are part of the Cyber Excepted Service to utilize paid time toward wider national efforts aimed at addressing the cyber workforce shortage,” the bill summary states.
The measure would also call for the department’s CIO to submit a report on the implementation of the 21st Century IDEA Act and use of the Cyber Excepted Service system.
