Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has introduced a bill that would task vendors to have their software products undergo vulnerability assessments by ethical hackers.

The Improving Contractor Cybersecurity Act would impose compliance with vulnerability disclosure policies (VDP), which lets security researchers study and report vulnerabilities of technologies to be purchased by agencies, Lieu's office said Tuesday.

“They (VDPs) allow security researchers to find software vulnerabilities and notify owners before they can be exploited by bad actors," Lieu said.

The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center, HackerOne and various cybersecurity executives support the newly presented bill.

“Vulnerability discovery and responsible disclosure of the kind championed by this bill is a foundational part of a more secure cyber ecosystem and helping to prevent malicious actor’s exploiting our government and private sector systems.” said Chris Painter, who formerly served as the State Department's coordinator for cyber issues.

If you want to learn more about federal cybersecurity policies, check out the 2021 Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Forum. Click here to register.

Dynetics Technical Solutions (DTS), a subsidiary of Dynetics, announced on Thursday that the company now operates the largest electron-beam welding system in the Western Hemisphere. Pro-Beam recently delivered the 22-feet-long by 22-feet-wide by the 22-feet-high system from Germany. The system is capable of supporting government and commercial programs at both the unclassified and classified levels.

"This system is an incredible addition to our precision machining and welding capabilities," added Ronnie Chronister, senior vice president of Weapons Technology and Manufacturing at Dynetics. "Electron-beam welding provides advanced opportunities that will significantly improve our manufacturing and bring about new capabilities. We're proud to enter this new phase and support this vital mission."

DTS’ welding facility will begin working on classified capabilities starting at the secret level and spanning to top secret. The new welding system can support various sensitive customer work, such as reinforcing the Virginia and Columbia class submarine hardware.

 The system’s capabilities also include metal inert gas welding and tungsten inert gas welding. These tools will support multiple programs, including the U.S. Army's Long Range Hypersonic Weapons (LRHW).

The electron beam capability was enabled by a $15 million Department of Defense's (DOD) Office of Industrial Policy contract awarded to support the office's Industrial Base Analysis & Sustainment (IBAS) program. The IBAS program’s mission is to help modernize the defense industrial base to ensure the U.S. maintains cutting-edge capabilities.

In addition to the electron-beam welding system, the company’s facilities include the Onsrud Gantry and over 30 CNC machines. These technologies support large structural hardware machining and post-weld machining in a classified environment.

"DTS has been a great partner standing up this new capability. The team worked very hard to stay on track throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our defense industrial base is better today thanks to their determination and dedication to the mission," said Adele Ratcliff, program director for IBAS. 

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.