President Biden has issued an executive order directing the creation of an interdisciplinary group of experts that will provide advisory support on science and technology.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology will be co-chaired by the “science adviser” or the assistant to the president for S&T and have up to 26 members including engineers, scientists and other professionals.

The science adviser, if also holding the Office of Science and Technology Policy director role, may appoint the U.S. chief technology officer as part of the council. According to the EO, PCAST is responsible for advising the president on S&T and innovation matters to help inform the development of policies.

The group will also provide advisory support to the National Science and Technology Council and collate key information from stakeholders such as national laboratories, universities, the private sector, nonprofit organizations and research entities.

Funding for the group will come from Department of Energy allocations, according to the notice. The council's creation comes in compliance with the presidential memo on scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking. 

The Department of Defense's (DOD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) held a two-day event that sought to help the participants address gaps, policies and approaches in adopting artificial intelligence technologies.

The second Partnership for Defense dialogue event tackled the relevance of data and the application of ethics and safety measures within the AI product lifecycle, JAIC said Wednesday.

Participants discussed their data readiness practices and analyzed various scenarios to validate key concerns and come up with approaches that could drive AI-based interoperability.

"The second Partnership for Defense dialogue focused on the necessary conditions for AI readiness, beginning with AI-ready data," said Stephanie Culberson, head of international AI policy at JAIC.

The attendees are composed of military and defense delegations from South Korea, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Israel, Japan, Norway, Australia, Sweden and the U.K. JAIC plans to host meetings regularly within the year to continue discussions on AI interoperability, readiness and responsibility.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued a report on the “Supernova” malware that threat actors used to impact SolarWinds’ Orion information technology management tool and breach critical user data.

CISA said Wednesday that the new malware analysis includes indicators of compromise to help IT teams study malicious artifacts related to the malware.

SolarWinds previously reported that hackers placed the Supernova attack into systems housing the Orion tool and that the malware is not embedded on the product’s supply chain, according to CISA’s guidance.

FireEye, which identified the Supernova attack, found that the hackers used the steganography obfuscation approach as well as token-spoofing to manipulate system communications through Orion, according to a prior report.

CISA has been “aware of compromises” resulting from the Orion attack which reportedly began in March 2020, the agency noted.

Four House Democratic have asked the Government Accountability Office to determine forces that prevent federal agencies from implementing building energy and water efficiency measures that support U.S. greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

In a letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the lawmakers said most of the facilities under the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) do not comply with Section 432 of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

The House members told Dodaro that the Department of Energy's EISA Section 432 compliance tracking system indicated that government buildings have hit a point of efficiency stagnation in the past four years.

They want to know the energy management approaches at agencies that have above-average rates in conforming to the law, details of reporting requirements exemption criteria and the practices used to monitor the effectiveness of conservation efforts under traditional or performance-based contracts.

The letter was signed by Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.; Frank Pallone, D-N.J.; Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.; and Bobby Bush, D-Ill.

Diane Knight, lead for the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program's pathfinders and pilots at the Department of Defense (DOD), said at a Jan. 26th virtual town hall that a final rule on the unified cybersecurity standard could be released in April 2021, FCW reported Wednesday.

Request for proposals are planned for April release, with responses due by July, and awards are estimated to be made in August, according to a "national" timeline preview shared by Knight.

The implementation is dependent on CMMC training for organizations and certification of CMMC Accreditation Body-approved assessors. The training covers development of materials and authorization of organizations to facilitate CMMC classes.

Ben Tchoubineh, a CMMC board member and chair of the training committee, said out of 22 applications, 12 schools have been approved as licensed training providers. Classes and formal training content are anticipated to be available by the late spring or early summer.

The AB has certified 16 licensed partner publishers for training materials. Two pending applications remain.