State Secretary Mike Pompeo has announced that the Department of the Treasury (DoT) will prohibit U.S. companies and individuals from investing in index funds, exchange traded funds and subsidiaries of Chinese companies with ties to the Chinese military.

Pompeo said in a statement published Monday the move is in compliance with an executive order signed in Nov. 2020 and seeks to ensure that U.S. investments do not support the modernization and development of Chinese military, security and intelligence services.

“Beginning on January 11, 2021, U.S. investors will no longer be able to transact in publicly traded or private market debt or equity securities, or any securities that are derivative thereof, regardless of the percentage ownership of CCMCs, with full divestment required by November 11th, 2021,” Pompeo said in the release.

He said the order covers all transactions by all U.S. persons, including pension funds, individuals, institutional investors, university endowments, bond issuers, venture capital firms, banks, index firms, private equity firms and U.S. entities operating abroad.

Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC) plans to roll out a new technology designed to repair circuit cards found within various marine-used electronic systems. U.S. Marine Corps said Wednesday its new Circuit Card Assembly Test Station works to detect issues within these circuit cards and perform needed repairs.

“CCATS enables electronic module repairs to be accomplished at the lowest practical maintenance level,” said Jorge Ruiz, CCATS project officer.

USMC expects the new technology to help maintainers assess, repair and test communication devices and other electronic tools used by marines. The service branch intends to field the new CCATS in fiscal year 2021's second quarter.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an advisory on a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that targeted the supply chain involving SolarWinds’ Orion information technology management platform and impacted public and private infrastructure.

The APT actor installed malicious code into Orion software updates that enabled access to customers’ network environments. Such breaches allow the threat actor to evade detection, create accounts and obtain classified information, CISA said in the advisory.

While the threat actor “only targeted some organizations with further network exploitation”, CISA recommends that organizations address system vulnerabilities and share threat information to support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) component's response efforts.

According to CISA, organizations must allocate sufficient resources, encourage third-party support and consider rebuilding network assets that utilize Orion.

CISA is additionally investigating other APT incidents that breach Security Assertion Markup Language authentication procedures, the agency noted.

A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report has found that conducting cybersecurity vulnerability assessments could help the Department of Defense (DoD) address issues in program costs and schedule delays.

GAO’s assessment states that 11 out of 15 major DoD information technology programs decreased cost estimates by up to 33.8 percent while 10 of those programs saw delays of up to five years, the watchdog said Wednesday.

According to the report, the eight programs that implemented cyber vulnerability reviews or systematic assessments of IT systems and products experienced less cost increases and program delays compared to the programs that failed to conduct such assessments.

Program officials have said that development challenges and testing delays impacted costs while challenges in cyber operations and performance resulted in schedule delays, GAO noted.

Ten of the 15 programs reportedly used commercial off-the-shelf software to quicken the pace of delivery, and 14 projects used iterative software development approaches.

However, GAO said that the IT programs also used a ”waterfall” approach to software development that could result in cost risks due to its “linear and sequential phases of development that may be implemented over a longer period of time.”

As part of the study, GAO selected the DoD’s major IT programs that established acquisition program baselines but have not fully deployed them by Dec. 31st, 2019.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has had its budget increased by $130 million by Congress to develop a new satellite constellation capable of tracking hypersonic weapons to fill a dramatic need in the U.S. missile warning architecture, C4ISRNET reported on Monday. 

The constellation will feature its own tracking layer satellites to provide a wide-field-of-view to detect hypersonic threats. The range and network of individual satellites will eventually land on the shoulders of an Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) for a more sensitive sensor that can create the proper targeting data to eliminate any possible threats. 

The newly passed fiscal 2021 appropriations bill states that Space Development Agency (SDA) and MDA “will share responsibility for developing and deploying the HBTSS architecture and constellation under a joint memorandum of agreement that defines each agency’s roles and responsibilities.”

The $130 million budget addition for the project includes a $10 million transfer from the SDA.