The Army Research Laboratory has funded the development of an immersive virtual reality hub where Kent State University scientists can examine how small groups operate in extreme environments using VR and other biophysiological instruments.

ARL said Thursday headsets in the VR lab are equipped with 3D eye-tracking and omnidirectional treadmills that are intended to work with electroencephalogram-based biometric technology.

“Understanding the consequences of status-based behavior in a variety of settings, including small team contexts, can help the Army prepare and train for modern military operations,” said Will Kalkhoff, director of the Electrophysiological Neuroscience Laboratory of Kent (ENLoK).

Kenn State researchers teamed up with Arotech's MILO business to apply social science and new technology platforms at the Department of Defense to increase military and law enforcement personnel readiness.

“Our ultimate goal is to advance the scientific understanding of behavior and decision-making under threat and, in so doing, reduce danger to our servicemen and women and improve mission success by facilitating team functioning under threat," said Robert McCue, general manager of MILO.

The ENLoK team previously identified neurological signals through brain activity analyses as part of an ARL-funded research project.

President Biden signed an executive order on Thursday expanding the scope of a previous policy that prohibits U.S. companies and individuals from investing in Chinese companies with ties to China’s military.

The Biden administration named 59 Chinese companies subject to the executive order’s prohibitions and the U.S. government will begin implementing the ban on U.S. investments in the listed entities starting Aug. 2nd, the White House said Thursday.

The directive also considers the development and use of Chinese surveillance systems to repress religious and ethnic minorities and facilitate human rights abuses within and outside of China as “unusual and extraordinary threats.”

The order allows the U.S. to “prohibit – in a targeted and scoped manner – U.S. investments in Chinese companies that undermine the security or democratic values of the United States and our allies.” 

The president directs the secretary of the Department of the Treasury to submit reports to Congress and promulgate rules and regulations to implement the order’s provisions. 

In November, the previous administration introduced an executive order banning such investments in 31 Chinese companies.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) office of inspector general (OIG) has recommended that the chief information security officer update DHS’ plan for the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program to demonstrate how the department will transition to a scalable CDM platform, ensure that components utilize tools to collect CDM data and integrate component data.

“As of March 2020, DHS had developed an internal CDM dashboard, but reported less than half of the required asset management data,” OIG wrote in a report issued Tuesday.

DHS was carrying out efforts to facilitate the integration and automation of the data collection process among its components and would need to upgrade its CDM dashboard to ensure it has the capacity to process data from components, according to the report.

“Until these capabilities are complete, the Department cannot leverage intended benefits of the dashboard to manage, prioritize, and respond to cyber risks in real-time,” the report reads.

The inspector general also urged DHS to mitigate vulnerabilities discovered on CDM databases and servers and define patch management responsibilities for such CDM information technology assets.

DHS agreed with the report’s recommendations. Once it has fully implemented the corrective actions, the department should submit to the IG’s office a closeout letter within 30 days.

If you want to know more about the latest updates about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, then check out Potomac Officers Club's CMMC Forum coming up on June 16th. 

MMC Accreditation Body Chairman Karlton Johnson will serve as the keynote speaker for the Forum to provide his overview and vision of the CMMC Rollout as well as the top priorities for the board and how industry feedback will help to improve the vision behind how the organization develops for the first 100 days.

To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page.

Chase Levinson, program lead for robotics process automation (RPA) in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Control, said the technology worked to accelerate the Standard Operations Maintenance Research and Development System (SOMARDS) retirement process, Nextgov reported Thursday.

He told attendees at a digital event Wednesday his team helped the service branch divest SOMARDS faster using an automated approach. The Army aimed to transfer information from the legacy financial management system into the web-based General Fund Enterprise Business System during the government's 2021 fiscal year.

“[RPA] enables us to pay down our technical debt, to divest from legacy systems and provide the new capabilities where it would otherwise be very difficult to affect those changes,” Levinson was quoted as saying.

He added that automation technology has the potential to drive the adoption of tools that could affect system changes and help enterprises manage operational efficiency.

The U.S. Army has commenced a competition that challenges U.S.-based organizations to present technologies, which address various needs faced by the service branch.

The Army Strategic Rapid Acquisition (AStRA) challenge will assess technologies in the areas of cross-domain solutions, tactical edge processing, novel batteries, multifunction antennas and cyber-electromagnetic operations, the Army said Wednesday.

The competition, which has a total prize pool of $25 million, will run across four phases: concept white paper, oral proposal, request for project proposal, and basis for the award. The first phase ended on May 25 and the second phase will occur in late June.

The Army may award one or multiple other transaction agreements to succeeding entrants.

The service's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) sponsors the competition, which runs under the leadership of the xTech Program. The assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology launched the xTech program to manage the Army's prize competitions that drive technological innovation.

“This will be RCCTO’s third technology outreach event to industry, resulting in many ongoing rapid prototyping efforts,” said Rob Monto, deputy director for advanced concepts and experimentation at RCCTO.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will use an existing document and input from stakeholders to develop best practices in response to an executive order on cybersecurity, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

Executive Order 14028 tasks NIST to inform how the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would guide federal software procurements.

The Biden Administration issued the order in response to breaches that stemmed from a cyber attack against information technology company SolarWinds, which provides services to the U.S. government.

NIST asked stakeholders for input on software development best practices and hosted a workshop to foster discussion on the topic. The agency will apply gathered input to further build on an existing white paper published in April.

"We are going to try to leverage and expand where appropriate the NIST secure software development framework, which has strong relationships and pointers and leverages many of the great existing industry practices in secure software development,” Kevin Stine, who leads NIST’s applied cybersecurity division, said at the workshop.