The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has drafted a document on data classification practices and asks the public for input. 

NCCoE seeks input from industry entities to further develop the draft project titled “Data Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security," the National Institute of Standards and Technology said Wednesday.

The project aims to establish and implement standards for defining and communicating data classifications. This effort would need to determine the hardware, software and requirements needed for a laboratory environment.

NCCoE will also attempt to apply the developed approach as a basic proof-of-concept and eventually corresponding craft practice guides. Interested parties may submit responses through June 21.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce asks Congress and the Biden administration to implement specific measures that internationally address cyber threats targeting businesses.

These measures include the disruption of international ransomware systems, the creation of an international coalition against ransomware and the enhancement of international law enforcement assets, the Chamber of Commerce said Friday.

Christopher Roberti, senior vice president for cyber, intelligence and supply chain security policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the government must now respond against cybercriminals that threaten businesses.

“The U.S. and allied governments must work together with the private sector to confront these challenges head-on,” he said.

Josh Corman, senior adviser for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said at the recent RSA conference that organizations must consider appointing an executive who would oversee the security of software products. 

Corman said the need for a chief product security officer (CPSO) arises amid the software-centric nature of recent attacks, Nextgov reported Friday. Corman and Chris Wysopal, founder of Veracode, spoke at the conference about the growing need for CPSOs in organizations.

“The idea is we need this new individual, to do something that, you know, spans many different departments now,” Wysopal said.

Corman noted that a good CSPO would be someone who is bimodal and willing to work with executive stakeholders to develop standards for risk-based hiring.

The Department of the Air Force is transitioning the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) into a new operational phase after meeting key standards in the past 18 months, the Air Force reported Friday.

ABMS seeks to help commanders and soldiers expedite sharing of information to achieve decision superiority and serves as the department’s contribution to the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All Domain and Control effort.

“We’ve demonstrated that our ABMS efforts can collect vast amounts of data from air, land, sea, space and cyber domains, process that information and share it in a way that allows for faster and better decisions,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown.

Under the new phase, the department’s Rapid Capabilities Office will acquire new software and equipment and install them on aircraft and other hardware and perform more testing activities. The new phase also provides Air Force and Space Force officials an opportunity to test ABMS’ ability to move data to a diverse joint force from a central source.

Capability Release No. 1 marks the initial step under the new phase of the ABMS program. Under this concept, a communications pod aboard a KC-46 Pegasus aircraft will enable the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II fighter jets to get and transmit the latest data needed to deliver decision superiority to the joint force.

President Biden has signed an executive order to direct the director of the National Economic Council and the national climate adviser to create within 120 days a government-wide strategy to identify climate-related financial risk to government assets, programs and liabilities.

The EO calls for the secretary of the Department of the Treasury to work with members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to evaluate the climate-related financial risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system and federal government and come up with a report within 180 days on recommended measures to help address risks to financial stability, the White House said Thursday.

Under the new policy, the secretary of the Department of Labor should consider rescinding or suspending any rules from the previous administration that would have prevented investment companies from taking a look at climate-related risks and other environmental and social factors in their investment decisions with regard to workers’ pensions.

The new administration will also require federal suppliers to divulge climate-linked financial risks and greenhouse gas emissions and ensure that major agency procurements reduce the risk of climate change.

The federal government should publish an annual assessment of its climate-associated fiscal risk exposure, while the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should help the federal government minimize that exposure to such financial risk “through the formulation of the President’s Budget and oversight of budget execution.”

In early May, the president also issued an executive order that calls for the creation of the climate change support office within the State Department.

A nonprofit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California, secured rights to use technology designed by Northrop Grumman to facilitate underwater electrical connections as part of a non-exclusive licensing deal.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute plans to further develop and apply the NiobiCon technology to power autonomous underwater vehicles intended for deep-ocean studies, Northrop said Friday.

"NiobiCon connector technology has the potential to dramatically reduce the frequency at which our underwater vehicles need to return to shore, enabling us to achieve a persistent presence at sea," said Andrew Hamilton, chair of MBARI's engineering division.

Northrop said its power connection system uses niobium to create a molecule-sized insulating layer and protect connectors from being exposed to water before they link with one another.

The company signed its first non-exclusive NiobiCon licensing agreement with interconnecting technology manufacturing company iCONN Systems last year.

Army Futures Command (AFC) is considering how to evolve collaboration tools and processes and other technologies as it prepares to support the hybrid workforce, Federal News Network reported Friday.

Kate Kelley, chief human capital officer of AFC, highlighted during a Thursday webinar the importance of striking the right balance of productivity, work location and positive lessons learned and the need to empower commanders to establish structures for their workforce by allowing them to take a “tailored approach.”

“And so I think what you’ll start to see from the Army perspective is flexibility to then employ more aggressive telework strategies than we’ve ever seen before. And then to tailor them to the unique needs of the organization,” Kelley said.

Col. Dave Lamy, the command’s chief information officer, said the service should modernize amid evolving work environments and provide the capability to support the commands. 

“One of the best ways to do that, in my mind, would be a Bring Your Own Device-like capability, where the Army does not need to continue to provide what we call GFE: government-furnished equipment,” Lamy said.

“The technology is out there; we just have to catch up with a policy to ensure that you can have that on a personally owned phone, as opposed to the government-issued phone which would, in the long run, save the government a small amount of money while maintaining the level of security that DoD requires,” he added.