The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released an advisory warning U.S. businesses of security risks associated with using data services and equipment from companies with ties to the Chinese government.

The Data Security Business Advisory highlights the risk posed by data theft sponsored by the government of the People’s Republic of China due to newly enforced laws that can pressure companies, academic institutions, research service providers and other entities to collect, store or transmit data, DHS said Tuesday.

“For too long, U.S. networks and data have been exposed to cyber threats based in China which are using that data to give Chinese firms an unfair competitive advantage in the global marketplace,” said Chad Wolf, acting secretary of DHS.

The advisory also cites China’s history of exploitation, manipulation and misuse of data to serve the country’s economic and business goals and presents recommendations U.S. businesses can take to address data-related risks.

These include implementing cybersecurity practices, identifying proprietary and sensitive personal information, ensuring “proper segmentation of network infrastructure from any external software use” and seeking trustworthy alternative equipment and service providers. 

“Practices that give the PRC government unauthorized access to sensitive data – both personal and proprietary – puts the U.S. economy and businesses at direct risk for exploitation. We urge businesses to exercise caution before entering into any agreement with a PRC-linked firm,” Wolf added.

A team of NASA engineers has tested the geographical image identification and processing functions of a navigation system from aerospace company Blue Origin during a lunar surface landing simulation exercise as part of a public-private partnership. 

NASA said Wednesday it integrated the aerospace company's BlueNav-L technology with agency-made navigation software for the test activity and demonstrated the potential of the system to determine a lander’s position when touching down on the moon's south pole.

The live simulation follows October tests of algorithms, two precision landing sensors and a computer on Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket, New Shepard, under the agency's Tipping Point program.

For the recent test, agency engineers used navigation algorithms that were built upon the Lander Vision System created at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

LVS is designed to identify a possible landing area between hazards based on orbital data from the sensor and support computation of a spacecraft position.

NASA added that LVS is similar to technology the agency expects to help the Perseverance rover land on Mars as part of an exploration mission.

The software licensing metric in the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard will now be retired after all 24 agencies received an ‘A’ in the category in its 11th iteration.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday three agencies saw improvement in their letter grades in the FITARA scorecard and those are the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Veterans Affairs (VA) and Labor.

None of the 24 agencies received failing grades. The committee reported that 16 agencies maintained their scores, while five showed a drop in their letter grades.

The House panel added a new metric to the FITARA 11.0 scorecard to assess agencies’ efforts to move from expiring contracts for telecommunications support to the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) vehicle. The scorecard showed that eight agencies got an ‘A’ grade in this category, including HHS and the departments of Agriculture and Justice.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, continued reliance on remote work, and an unprecedented and highly sophisticated cyber-attack by a foreign adversary—the importance of federal agencies’ effective use of IT is too great to ignore,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Oversight’s government operations subcommittee. “FITARA remains an effective tool at catalyzing IT advancement across the enterprise of the federal government. Let’s ensure we use it to continue to raise the bar."

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has set aside more than $107 million in research projects and grant supplements to support development of non-traditional technologies needed for COVID-19 testing and surveillance and for addressing future COVID-19 waves and other infectious diseases.

NIH said Monday 43 U.S. institutions received funding under the "Radical" segment of the agency's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics program to work on nearly 50 initiatives focused on new approaches to SARS-CoV-2 virus tracking and identification.

Technologies being considered under the RADx Radical program include artificial intelligence-powered biomarkers and biosignatures for risk prediction, integrated biosensing platform for early SARS-CoV-2 detection, airborne detector for real-time monitoring and diagnostic breathalyzer for instant virus identification.

"These awards from the RADx-rad program provide superb examples of outside-the-box concepts that will help us overcome this pandemic and give us a cadre of devices and tactics to confront future outbreaks," said Francis Collins, director of NIH.

The awards also provide for efforts to characterize the spectrum of SARS CoV-2 associated illness and to create wastewater technologies and data collection methods intended to inform development of targeted public health protection measures by estimating SARS-CoV-2 community infection levels.

The RADx program provides assistance in COVID-19 testing efforts through four targeted initiatives: RADx Tech, RADx Advanced Technology Platforms, RADx Underserved Populations and RADx Radical. Eleven NIH institutes and centers support the RADx-rad grants and supplements.