Joseph Evans, principal director for 5G within the office of the undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense, said DOD has made advances in setting up the five “Tranche 1” sites for 5G testing and experimentation efforts and expects those testbeds to be operational by the fall of 2021, DoD reported Tuesday.

In October 2020, the Pentagon awarded $600 million to 15 companies to support 5G experimentation at five U.S. military bases or Tranche 1 sites: Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington; Naval Base San Diego in California; Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany in Georgia; Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada; and Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

DoD announced seven Tranche 2 sites for 5G testing in June and Evans said the department is preparing to issue request for proposals for those military installations.

He said a request for white papers was issued for three Tranche 2 installations: Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California and Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.

"The solicitation for white papers closed on December 15," Evans said. "We're in the process of evaluating those. The next step — hopefully late January or early February — will be a request for proposals for those three bases." 

He said the Pentagon is collaborating with the National Spectrum Consortium to issue solicitations for four other military bases under Tranche 2.

"We hope those will be out in a similar time frame, early in the new calendar year," Evans said. "Those solicitations will be for experiments at Joint Base San Antonio, for experiments at the National Training Center and Fort Hood, as well as an experiment at Tinker Air Force Base.

Join Potomac Officers Club for its 5G Summit on Jan. 7th, 2021 featuring Maj. Gen. Kimberly Crider and Dr. Joseph Evans as keynote speakers to learn about the impact that innovative technologies and 5G integration have on the private and public sectors, the steps the federal agencies have taken to remain up to speed with the rapid advancement of technology, and the future programs, plans and priorities as the nation aligns with emerging technology.

Don’t miss out on this must see event! Register here for Potomac Officers Club's 5G Summit on Jan. 7th, 2021. 

The House has passed by voice vote a bipartisan bill that seeks to codify the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program and establish an advisory panel that would coordinate procurement and cybersecurity efforts under the governmentwide cloud computing initiative.

The FedRAMP Authorization Act of 2021 would allocate a $20 million budget for General Services Administration (GSA) efforts to increase the availability of secure cloud offerings and require GSA to automate its process of assessing and monitoring technology offerings, the office of Gerald Connolly, D-Va., said Tuesday.

“For nearly four years, I have worked with the Office of Management and Budget, GSA, industry stakeholders, and my friends on the other side of the aisle to ensure that the bill makes needed improvements to the FedRAMP program, and also gives the program flexibility to grow and adopt to myriad future changes in cloud technologies," said Connolly, who serves as the bill's principal sponsor.

James Comer, R-Ky., and Jody Hice, R-Ga., co-sponsored the legislation.

The bipartisan bill allows the formation of a Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee to facilitate government-industry dialogue, the establishment of a “presumption of adequacy” for authorized cloud platforms and the reuse of technologies with authority to operate certifications.

Connolly's office noted that 211 products are FedRAMP-compliant and small businesses account for 30 percent of the 240 industry participants in the program. GSA found that the number of agencies reusing certified platforms under the program rose 50 percent during fiscal 2020.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued a notice announcing its move to update the current system of records called the Defense Repository for Common Enterprise Data to support and cover more information systems being created within DoD.

“The expanded system of records will support multiple information systems that provide DoD-wide and component-level enterprise solutions for integrating and analyzing targeted data from existing DoD systems to develop timely, actionable, and insightful conclusions in support of national strategies,” the notice reads.

The Pentagon is also modifying the authority for maintenance of the system, system location, purpose of the system, record source strategies, notification procedures, individuals covered by the system and system managers.

The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller was the sole information system manager. With the update, system managers now include chief data officers from DoD and departments of the U.S. Air Force, Navy and the Army.

The Pentagon is scheduled to publish Wednesday in the Federal Register a notice of proposed rulemaking to exempt the updated system of records from some provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974.

The FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a joint statement on Tuesday through the newly created cyber unified coordination group (UCG) to provide updates on an advanced persistent threat actor allegedly linked to Russia. 

“The UCG believes that, of the approximately 18,000 affected public and private sector customers of Solar Winds’ Orion product, a much smaller number have been compromised by follow-on activity on their systems. We have so far identified fewer than ten U.S. government agencies that fall into this category, and are working to identify and notify the nongovernment entities who also may be impacted,” the joint statement reads.

FBI is conducting an investigation based on four lines of effort: victim identification, evidence collection, analysis of evidence and sharing of results with partners in the government and private sector.

CISA’s efforts include information sharing activities, development of a free tool to detect malicious activity related to the cyber incident and issuance of a technical alert. ODNI is working to provide UCG with updated intelligence data to facilitate cyber response and mitigation activities within the U.S. government.

The NSA has been supporting UCG by offering technical mitigation measures, evaluating the scope and scale of the cyber incident and providing actionable guidance, cybersecurity and intelligence support to UCG partners and stakeholders within the defense and national security community.

The FBI, CISA and ODNI announced the formation of UCG in mid-December to facilitate a “whole-of-government response” to the cyber attack involving SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management products.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has warned about risks posed by obsolete encryption protocols and offered a cybersecurity information sheet for identifying and replacing outdated Transport Layer Security or Secure Sockets Layer configurations that could be used for decryption and exploitation of sensitive data.

The cybersecurity guidance, titled "Eliminating Obsolete TLS Protocol Configurations", is put together to assist network administrators and security analysts within the National Security System, Department of Defense and defense industrial base in detecting, prioritizing and remediating legacy protocol configurations and then blocking said network vulnerabilities, NSA said Tuesday.

NSS TLS protocols are required by a Committee on National Security Systems policy to comply with specified algorithm standards.

NSA said addressing obsolete encryption is needed to ensure that private data is not exploited and that computer system and network attack surfaces are minimal.

Aside from the cybersecurity paper, the agency also announced the availability of information about network signatures, sample configurations and links to more tools and resources at the NSA Cybersecurity Github site.

Tyndall Air Force Base has fielded an X-ray machine to speed up the search process for vehicles carrying cargo and building materials.

The Mobile Vehicle Access Control Inspection System, dubbed as VACIS M6500, expedites the time needed to check commercial vehicles from 15 minutes to a two-minute time frame, the U.S. Air Force said Saturday.

"The image from the X-ray will allow us to quickly and efficiently scan for any anomalies, ensure the correct number of passengers are in the vehicle and confirm there is nothing in the cargo that should not be there," said Norman Shoemake, a search specialist at the 325th Security Forces Squadron.

USAF aims to process four times the number of vehicles within an hour through the device. The service branch noted base security previously asked drivers to turn off their vehicles and open all compartments for a thorough search procedure.

The $2.2 million machine is a part of a five to seven-year effort that seeks to rebuild Tyndall AFB following the effects of Hurricane Michael in 2018.

NASA has completed the final design review of an Earth observation satellite designed to fly for the U.S. Space Force, Space Ref reported Monday.

The space agency assessed multiple safety aspects of the Landsat-9 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter or ESPA Flight System and concluded the final design review on Dec. 15.

The review verified the combined system's readiness for final integration activities. USSF's EFS would carry multiple satellite vehicles that will individually operate for civilian and national security missions. The Landsat-9 satellite will operate alongside EFS.

NASA plans to soon integrate the combined Landsat-9 EFS ahead of the launch scheduled for September 2021. Northrop Grumman designed and produced Landsat-9.

Maj. Jeremy Howell, a U.S. Army officer who serves as deputy robotics branch chief, G-8, said the service's robotics portfolio has grown in terms of budget, with 20 upcoming programs, National Defense Magazine reported Monday.

Howell, at the Joint Armaments, Robotics and Munitions virtual conference, presented the difference between the Army's request of $379 million for fiscal 2021 robotics projects and the $17 million budget in fiscal year 2015.

The Army's robotics projects will focus on situational awareness, soldier workload reduction, maneuverability, force protection and sustainment. The major noted that the Army wants to purchase modular mission payloads that may consist of communications systems, anti-jamming technologies and lethality packs.

Now, the service branch wants to determine how it will facilitate communications across thousands of unmanned aircraft systems and land-based robots on the battlefield.

“The question that we have is, how do we communicate with this vast number of robots so that they are able to be a force multiplier for the commander instead of a distraction?" Howell said.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, who leads the the Joint Staff's command and control group or J6, said the military intends to analyze requirements of a planned multi-domain C2 approach, Breaking Defense reported Monday.

As the military plans to implement an integration of sensors and weapon systems through the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) approach, J6 wants to identify JADC2's possible gaps and release results by February 2021. 

Crall said the analysis will begin this month and he expects to produce a JADC2 posture review based on the results. The gap analysis will inform J6's funding strategy for JADC2, he noted.

The Department of Defense (DoD) envisions JADC2 as an integration between sensors, communications and weapon systems. This approach is designed to accelerate and improve commanders' decision making in joint battlefield environments.

Lt. Gen. Crall said this approach will require automation across all systems involved to ensure information can move to where it is needed.

“It is about taking advantage of that sensor-rich environment — looking at things like data standards; making sure that we can move this information into an area that, again, we can process it properly; bringing on cloud; bringing on artificial intelligence, predictive analytics; and then undergirding this with a network that can handle this, all domains and partners," he said.