Excelicon announced Wednesday that the company has been named in the 2021 Inc. 5000 Regionals list. The list includes the most successful independent small businesses in the Washington D.C. area. Inc. selected companies based in major metro areas, including Baltimore, Maryland, the Washington, D.C. area, and Richmond, Virginia, that brought in the highest revenue.

“We are so proud of our team that makes it possible for the company to deliver Excellence in Consulting. This recognition and our 49th ranking in the DC Region is proof that what we are doing is working,” says Excelicon CEO Tushar Garg.

“Excelicon is proud and humbled to be recognized by Inc. 5000 again, and we will use this as motivation to continue providing excellent support for our clients and their missions,” Garg added.

The Inc. 5000 list presents a look at the most successful independent small businesses on the cutting edge of innovation or producing unique products that excite private and public industries.

The companies on the Inc. 5000 list show incredible growth rates across all industries in the D.C. area. From 2017-2019, the list’s 250 companies averaged a 211 percent growth rate. In 2019, the companies employed over 120,000 people and contributed $15 billion to the local economy.

“This list proves the power of companies in the Washington, D.C. area no matter the Industry. The impressive revenues and growth rates prove the insight and diligence of CEOs and that these businesses are here to stay,” concluded Inc. editor in chief Scott Omelianuk.

About  Excelicon   

Excelicon is an advisor and provider of agile cybersecurity and advisory services to clients, helping government customers increase efficiency, get the best value and bring systems into the modern era. Holding contracts with several federal agencies, Excelicon is dedicated to delivering high-quality service to clients that uphold ethical and humane missions that support national security, resilience, and health.  Excelicon consultants apply their advanced technical acumen on the ground, working with client’s side-by-side to ensure a stronger government for all.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has released a document for vulnerability scanning procedures involving container technology for cloud environments.

FedRAMP said Tuesday that the Vulnerability Scanning Requirements for Containers guidance details standards for security considerations, processes and architectures in line with the assessments of cloud service providers during a technical exchange meeting.

The requirements are applicable to systems implementing containerization concepts including security sensors, hardened images, registry monitoring, asset management and orchestration.

According to the document, such guidelines are meant to address risks to containerization technology such as nonstandard configurations, invalidated external software, unauthorized access, unmanaged repositories and unmonitored communications between containers.

The guide also serves as a supplement for scanning requirements detailed in the FedRAMP Continuous Monitoring Strategy Guide.

Tyto Athene, a full-service systems integrator of network services and solutions, has received a NETCENTS 2 task order from multiple sites for the U.S. Air Force, Air Force Reserve Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) and Air National Guard.

Through the task order, Tyto Athene will provide enhanced 911 sustainment services, hardware sustainment and digital logging recorder (DLR) sustainment services. The contract also includes operations related to E911 as well as the following:

The latest Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) and APL certified software patches

Support for all software revisions and hardware servicing E911 systems

• Hardware replacement to lowest replaceable unit
• Repair and Return (R&R) hardware sustainment to include logistics support
• Remote support for escalation of issues utilizing Tyto’s Network Operations Center (NOC)
• Dispatch of skilled professionals on an as-needed basis to ensure reliable operations

Tyto has supported this crucial worldwide Air Force mission for multiple generations of the program contract, and is privileged to continue meeting this need as a trusted partner and prime contractor.

This task order marks the latest contract award that Tyto Athene has received over the past couple of months. Most recently, the company entered into an agreement to acquire AT&T Government Solutions, Inc. (GSI).

With the acquisition, Tyto Athene and GSI will continue to deliver IT professional services and offerings to support federal agencies. Following the close of the purchase, Tyto Athene will employ approximately 1,200 employees with 18 offices across the U.S. and worldwide.

Tyto Athene has projected that the transaction will further enable the company to address the requirements of technology-enabled digital transformation and joint all-domain operations.

About Tyto Athene

Tyto Athene is a full-service systems integrator providing design, installation, and support of complex voice, data, and security networks. Our wide range of network services and solutions include VoIP/voice, video, data, transport, infrastructure, network management, and security.

Tyto Athene has over fifty years of experience supporting the Federal Government, the Department of Defense, State and Local Governments, communities, first responders and organizations across the United States and around the globe.

The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps have released a campaign plan that outlines a strategy for integrating unmanned systems in support of the future maritime mission.

The Unmanned Campaign Framework has five goals, including advancing manned-unmanned teaming effects within the full range of naval and joint operations, building a digital infrastructure that adopts unmanned capabilities at scale and speed and incentivizing rapid incremental development and testing cycles for unmanned platforms, the Navy said Tuesday.

The plan provides guidance on how the services will identify performance requirements, reduce risks and pursue an agile approach to come up with core technologies in order to integrate unmanned platforms into the Navy’s future force structure.

“The Navy and Marine Corps unmanned campaign plan will guide our naval research and development investments, and through the acquisition process, we will collaborate with our industry partners to design, build, field and sustain manned and unmanned teaming throughout the fleet,” said Frederick Stefany, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. 

“It also sets the framework to enable the Department of the Navy to accelerate, deliver and scale valuable manned and unmanned capabilities,” Stefany added.

To register for this virtual forum, visit the Potomac Officers Club Events page. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have issued a joint statement saying they found no evidence that a foreign government compromised election infrastructure to manipulate the 2020 U.S. federal elections.

DOJ and DHS investigated public claims, including allegations that foreign governments controlled systems used in the elections and carried out a scheme to manipulate those systems, and determined that they were not credible, according to the joint statement released on Tuesday.

The findings are part of a classified report the departments submitted to the president in February in compliance with the executive order Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Influence in a United States Election.

The joint document released on Tuesday includes key findings and recommendations from the classified report. 

DHS and DOJ have recommended that the U.S. government continue to help election officials and political campaigns implement best practices for election security; assist political organizations with establishing supply chain risk management procedures; foster collaboration with federal, local and state government agencies and private sector partners; and improve the quality and quantity of public messaging and education.

Researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a new type of quantum error correction that could help advance the development of a fault-tolerant quantum computer, which could provide the military with data processing capabilities needed to fight in multidomain operations, the Army reported Tuesday.

The Army Research Office (ARO) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research funded the research work, which tailored the friction experienced by quantum bits or qubits to achieve a passive QEC where the quantum errors are rectified spontaneously.

“This is a very exciting accomplishment not only because of the fundamental error correction concept the team was able to demonstrate, but also because the results suggest this overall approach may amenable to implementations with high resource efficiency,” said Sara Gamble, quantum information science program manager at the Army Research Office.

“Efficiency is increasingly important as quantum computation systems grow in size to the scales we’ll need for Army relevant applications,” Gamble added.

The Potomac Officers Club will hold the 2021 JADO Forum on April 15 to feature discussions on initiatives, priorities and challenges related to joint all domain operations. To register for this virtual forum and view other upcoming events, visit the Potomac Officers Club Events page.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks the public's input on a strategy that aims to address climate change through efforts in forestry and agriculture. USDA said Monday that it needs information on climate-smart agriculture and forestry approaches, bioproducts, renewable energy and wildfire.

The department also seeks insight into how the climate strategy can benefit disadvantaged communities. The strategy will support President Biden’s executive order that aims to address the climate crisis in the U.S. and overseas. 

The order emphasized the significant role of farmers and forest landowners in pursuit of the strategy's goal, with regard to carbon isolation and greenhouse gas reduction.

Interested parties may submit responses through April 30 via the Federal Register.

The National Security Agency’s (NSA) Central Security Service will hold a research event focused on the implementation of principles to address fundamental issues in cybersecurity.

NSA said Monday that  the Hot Topics on Science of Security (HotSoS) event will take place from April 13th to 15th and include virtual plenary presentations and poster sessions through the Hopin and Gather.town platforms, respectively.

The eight HotSoS symposium focuses on cybersecurity and will enable researchers to submit progress papers on relevant topics. The event will also include a breakout session that covers “hard problems” on national security based on proposals from the community.

CSS will accept registrations for HotSoS through April 11th. The call for security hard problems will run through March 21st.