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DOE Funds 5 Supercomputer Research Projects to Advance Quantum, Chemical Studies; Secretary Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE Funds 5 Supercomputer Research Projects to Advance Quantum, Chemical Studies; Secretary Jennifer Granholm Quoted

The Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated $28 million to support five software development projects to improve supercomputers in support of its scientific studies toward clean energy.

The selected teams will work on computational methods, algorithms and software to advance U.S. capabilities in quantum information science and chemical reactions, the agency said Friday.

Participants will team up with the FASTMath and RAPIDS2 institutes led by the Lawrence Berkeley and Argonne National Laboratories.

"These investments will help sustain U.S. leadership in science, accelerate basic research in energy and advance solutions to the nation’s clean energy priorities," explained Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The department's Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Basic Energy Sciences sponsored the efforts using $7 million in fiscal 2021 funds and others dependent on congressional appropriations.

DOE made the awards through the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program, which was launched in 2001 to pursue the development of the scientific computing software and hardware infrastructure required to advance scientific discovery using supercomputers.

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Former NIST Official Laurie Locascio Nominated Commerce Undersecretary for Standards, Technology
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Former NIST Official Laurie Locascio Nominated Commerce Undersecretary for Standards, Technology

The White House has named Laurie Locascio, a three-decade veteran of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and current vice president of research at the University of Maryland, as President Biden’s pick for commerce undersecretary for standards and technology.

In her current role, Locascio oversees innovation programs at UMD campuses in College Park and Baltimore, which collectively receive $1.1 billion in external research funds each year, the White House said Friday. She also teaches at the university’s bioengineering and pharmacology departments.

Locascio joined UMD in October 2017 after more than two decades of service at NIST, where her roles included acting principal deputy director and associate director for laboratory programs.

She managed internal scientific research and lab efforts at agency-run facilities in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, Colorado. The biomedical researcher received 11 patents and authored more than 100 scientific papers over the course of her career.

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FBI Appoints James Brown as Operational Technology Division’s Assistant Director
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FBI Appoints James Brown as Operational Technology Division’s Assistant Director

James “Robert” Brown, former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Louisville Field Office in Kentucky, was named as the assistant director of the Operational Technology Division at the law enforcement agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

FBI said Friday Brown will be responsible for supporting the division as it works to deliver technologies aimed at enabling and enhancing the intelligence, national security and law enforcement operations of the agency.

Brown has almost two decades of experience in serving at the FBI. He joined the agency in 2002, assuming various responsibilities in support of its field offices in Miami, Washington, Charlotte and Columbia.

Prior to taking on his most recent role, Brown worked as deputy assistant director for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate at headquarters. He also served as section chief in the Criminal Investigative Division in 2016, managing intelligence collection efforts and investigations of Western Hemisphere-based transnational criminal organizations.

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Commerce Adds 6 Russian Institutions to Entity List
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Commerce Adds 6 Russian Institutions to Entity List

The Department of Commerce’s bureau of industry and security has added six institutions with ties to the Russian government to its entity list for their involvement in activities that pose a threat to U.S. national security, economy and foreign policy.

“BIS imposes a license review policy of a presumption of denial for these six entities. In addition, no license exceptions are available for exports, reexports, or transfers (in-country) to the persons being added to the Entity List in this rule,” according to a final rule posted Monday in Federal Register.

The bureau’s move seeks to complement the sanctions imposed by the Department of the Treasury’s office of foreign assets control in April on the six entities in compliance with an executive order meant to counter Russia’s harmful foreign activities, including election interference and cyberattacks.

The entities added to the list are Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo AST; Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Pasit; Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Pozitiv Teknolodzhiz; Federal State Autonomous Institution Military Innovative Technopolis Era; Federal State Autonomous Scientific Establishment Scientific Research Institute Specialized Security Computing Devices and Automation; and Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoi Otvetstvennostyu NEOBIT.

Reuters reported that four of the entities are information technology firms – Pasit, Neobit, Pozitiv Teknolodzhiz and AST. Era is a research center and technology park run by Russia’s defense ministry, while SVA is a Russian state-owned institution linked to malicious cyber activities.

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Microsoft Partners With U.S. Army Engineers To Use Azure Cloud For Extreme Weather Modeling
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Microsoft Partners With U.S. Army Engineers To Use Azure Cloud For Extreme Weather Modeling

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that the company has signed a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with U.S. Army engineers use the company’s Azure Government cloud for a system that models extreme weather around coasts. Nextgov reported Friday. 

The announcement states, “This government/industry collaboration is aimed at improving climate modeling and natural disaster resilience planning through the use of predictive analytics-powered, cloud-based tools and Artificial Intelligence (AI) services.”

The CRADA stipulates that the Army Engineer Research and Design Center (ERDC) will use CSTORM-MS, a coastal storm modeling system, to demonstrate its scalability in Azure. The Army’s objective is to increase modeling capacity and improve the dissemination of data.

Microsoft and ERDC will prove scalability by running its storm suite for the North Atlantic coast at a sea-level rise value. This data has never been simulated before. The data will allow other researchers to use the model results and copy the workflow for their own affected coastlines.

ERDC and the company have already finished initial Azure testing. In 202, ERDC and the Department of Defense’s High-Performance Modernization program completed a workload assessment that included a feasibility study for the CSTORM-MS models. 

Microsoft is well experienced in supporting many government organization’s digital transformation with Azure. Cloud integration and information technology (IT) modernization requires strong cybersecurity, along with an experienced team like Microsoft. 

In an attempt to bolster its cybersecurity capabilities which will be involved with the CRADA, the company agreed to buy cybersecurity company RiskIQ for over $500 million in cash, GovConWire reported Monday. 

The upcoming acquisition will add new security features to Azure cloud and Windows services that stop cyberattacks and bring on additional staff who will help detect vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. 

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Government Website to Serve as One-Stop Hub for Ransomware Resources; DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted
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Government Website to Serve as One-Stop Hub for Ransomware Resources; DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted

The departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) have unveiled a new website to serve as a central hub of federal cybersecurity resources to help U.S. companies and public sector organizations protect their networks from ransomware attacks.

The website StopRansomware.gov provides guidance on how businesses can report attacks and includes alerts on ransomware threats from several agencies, including the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), DOJ said Thursday.

Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of DHS and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, said businesses should prioritize cybersecurity amid rising ransomware attacks that directly impact national security and the lives of U.S. citizens.

“I urge every organization across our country to use this new resource to learn how to protect themselves from ransomware and reduce their cybersecurity risk,” Mayorkas added.

Organizations made approximately $350 million in ransomware payments in 2020, reflecting a rise of more than 300 percent from the prior year.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said DOJ is working to bring all tools to counter ransomware attacks through the Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force.

“But we cannot do it alone. It is critical for business leaders across industries to recognize the threat, prioritize efforts to harden their systems and work with law enforcement by reporting these attacks promptly,” Garland added.

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Denis McDonough: VA Rethinks EHR Project Management Strategy to Address User Concerns
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Denis McDonough: VA Rethinks EHR Project Management Strategy to Address User Concerns

Denis McDonough, secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), said that VA is considering developing an enterprise-wide framework for electronic health records modernization project governance after initial users of its new EHR platform voiced their concerns over the commercially built technology, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

He added that the department needs to adjust its timeline for deploying the system, based on Cerner's Millennium software, to additional sites.

His remarks come after a strategic review of the VA's EHR modernization effort uncovered problems with training, data migration, usability and patient safety.

Cerner received a potential 10-year, $10 billion contract in May 2018 to help the VA implement the same commercial off-the-shelf platform the Defense Department has adopted and the health technology provider completed deployment work at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Washinton state in October 2020.

McDonough said clinicians using the platform confirmed the availability of data pools from both departments but they reported the system does not populate records simultaneously.

VA officials on Wednesday shared with reporters a document on lessons the department learned from the initial rollout.

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Capt. Eugene Cash: Robotic Process Automation Simplifies Navy Supply Chain Management
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Capt. Eugene Cash: Robotic Process Automation Simplifies Navy Supply Chain Management

Fifteen software application robots, designed to perform rapid manual and labor-intensive tasks at the Naval Supply System Command, are undergoing evaluation, development or production as part of the U.S. Navy’s robotic process automation program.

The service branch said Wednesday its RPA governance team cleared six bots to support the supply chain enterprise and is still working on nine similar tools.

Capt. Eugene Cash, commanding officer of the NAVSUP Business Systems Center, said the bots are performing repetitive and manual business data entry tasks to let human users concentrate on more important functions.

The branch’s 10-member RPA governance team, which includes five information technology specialists, partnered with an industry team comprised of 20 contractors to design and develop software.

Allison Holle, the team’s supervisory IT project manager, envisions NAVSUP pursuing an initiative to train citizen developers to set up RPA centers at every command.

“We want to deliver this tool to commands across the enterprise so they can quickly develop automation that support their mission,” Holle said.

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Gen. Glen VanHerck: AI-Based Decision Aids Could Support Deterrence Strategy Formulation
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Gen. Glen VanHerck: AI-Based Decision Aids Could Support Deterrence Strategy Formulation

Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, plans to convince the Department of Defense's top officials that artificial intelligence-based decision support tools are necessary for U.S. military leaders to develop a comprehensive deterrence strategy, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

VanHerck told the publication he wants to present AI technology's application across a global all-domain problem set and its potential to help commanders identify options for deterring adversarial action or preventing conflict escalation.

Northrcom tested the potential of AI and machine learning software for military decision-making through the command's third Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE 3).

The command is awaiting final results from GIDE 3, which concluded Thursday, in order to make a case for bringing the technology to the commanders.

VanHerck said he is looking to discuss the findings with Deputy Defense Secretary and 2021 Wash100 Award winner Kathleen Hicks and Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. John Hyten.

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Air Force’s Kessel Run Shares ‘Chaos Engineering’ Practices to Navy’s Black Pearl; Omar Marrero Quoted
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Air Force’s Kessel Run Shares ‘Chaos Engineering’ Practices to Navy’s Black Pearl; Omar Marrero Quoted

Kessel Run, or the DevSecOps unit of the Air Force Life Cycle Management (AFLCM) Center, has started sharing a set of standard operating procedures for "Chaos Engineering" to the Department of the Navy’s Black Pearl to help it in providing cloud-based enterprise platform and development tool.

Delivering Chaos Engineering practices is aimed at enabling the Navy's current and future software factories and, in the future, enhancing software development units within the Department of Defense, Kessel Run said Wednesday.

The AFLCM unit leverages Chaos Engineering to continuously target applications to identify potential weak points within its own system. The approach reflects the practices developed by non-government software factories.

Kessel Run conducted its first simulated attack in 2020, which resulted in the Chaos Engineering SOP.

“That success has led us to create a ‘playbook’ in collaboration with Black Pearl for the DOD DevSecOps Reference Design Version 2.0 document set," said Omar Marrero, the Chaos and performance tech and Kessel Run all domain operation system test manager with Kessel Run. "It has the potential to be used by all of our peer software factories within the DOD.”

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