The Department of Energy’s office of cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response has advised partners in the government and energy industry to be vigilant to phishing attacks, malicious emails and other cyber threats amid the new coronavirus pandemic.

CESER is calling on corporate leaders to advise their employees to be aware of risks associated with phishing, external emails and social engineering, DOE said Thursday.

“Please exercise extreme caution when opening any emails related to COVID-19 and clearly establish good sources of communication to avoid confusion with misinformation,” according to DOE.

CESER wants energy firms to assess the potential impact of COVID-19 on service delivery efforts of managed service providers, use the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s risk management guide Insights to help consider and address cyber, physical and supply chain concerns that may emerge from the spread of the virus.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a technical bulletin urging organizations to enact  security policies and require multifactor authentication for teleworking employees who need to access enterprise data.

Organizations should assume that an external environment contains hostile threats when planning telework security policies and implement validated encryption tools designed to protect client device communications, according to the March 2020 bulletin from NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory.

The agency noted that desktop and laptop computers, tablets and smartphones may be used to transmit emails, visit websites, view documents and perform other tasks from an external location.

NIST recommended the adoption of tunneling, direct application access, portal and remote desktop access methods to prevent unauthorized access to an organization’s computing resources.

These recommendations were based on the second revision of NIST Special Publication 800-46 and issued as  more organizations allow remote work for employees during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kevin Cox, a Department of Homeland Security official, said his team is fielding a cloud-based shared services dashboard as part of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program to help agencies operationalize their data through visualization, business intelligence and analytics, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

“In addition to all of that work, we’ve expanded out into our network security management arena,” Cox, CDM program manager at DHS, said on the network’s Federal Monthly Insights – CDM Month. “We are working with agencies to get a better understanding of what their perimeters look like, what data they already have out in the cloud.”

The department’s CDM uses the dashboard to deliver access and identity management and asset management capabilities to 34 non-CFO Act agencies.

Cox also offered updates on his team’s efforts when it comes to mobile asset data. “We’re about to begin an effort to work with agencies to pull in their mobile asset data from their enterprise mobility management systems. So we’re venturing in on the mobile side,” he noted.

The Census Bureau is seeking “economic indicator” status from the Office of Management and Budget for one of its experimental data products created using new data methods and sources to address gaps in the agency’s understanding of the U.S. economy, FedScoop reported Thursday.

The Business Formation Statistics is an experimental data product and a series of measures of quarterly business applications, projections and formations that started in July as a partnership of the bureau’s Center for Economic Studies with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland and Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

“Understanding that finding new and innovative ways to provide our data users with the information they need, but doing it without the added expense or burden of traditional surveys, has kind of really motivated a lot of the work,” Rebecca Hutchinson, big data lead at the Census Bureau, said of experimental data products during a Data Coalition webinar.

Dispersion Statistics on Productivity, Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes and Supplemental Quarterly E-Commerce Table are the three other experimental statistical data products.

The U.S. Air Force has developed a software tool designed to help airmen schedule aircraft training based on personnel and flight availabilities.

The Puckboard application produces schedule recommendations with other events and personnel qualifications taken into consideration, USAF said Wednesday.

The service branch plans to launch Puckboard with live data for training with the C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft on Friday.

Puckboard would replace an old several-day process where airmen would manually shuffle pucks to set schedule matches. The new software automates the matching process that now only takes seconds to complete.

“We are now at the beginning of a complete overhaul (of the scheduling process), starting with the current Puckboard product, that will continue to be improved until the old process is an afterthought," said Capt. Eric Robinson of the15th Wing Aloha Spark team. He also leads Pacific Air Forces' TRON agile software development effort.

Robinson said he and his team aim to help airmen refocus on training, families and the USAF mission.

The Department of Energy is investing $3M in cost-shared projects that aim to support manufacturing processes via computing and modeling approaches.

DOE said Tuesday its High Performance Computing for Manufacturing program seeks to lower the consumption of energy required for materials supply chain activities.

“The High Performance Computing for Manufacturing program allows industry to access advanced computing resources within the DOE National Laboratories to address key manufacturing challenges and strengthen U.S. manufacturing competitiveness,” said Alex Fitzsimmons, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency. 

The department asks interested organizations to collaborate with opportunity zone nonprofits and historically black colleges for the projects.

Each selected project would support work at DOE national laboratories and may receive a maximum of $300K in funds. Industry participants are required to cover at least 20 percent of new project costs, and at least 33.3 percent for follow-on projects.

DOE will accept concept paper submissions through April 21. Webinars on the HPC4Mfg program will take place on March 23 and April 2.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has identified resources of 5G technology assessments to help inform the development of commercial technologies encompassing cellphones, internet-of-things networks, “smart” manufacturing platforms and autonomous vehicles.

NIST said Wednesday it is developing methods for evaluating the capacity of antenna systems to handle 5G connectivity. The agency also established a broadband interoperability testbed that houses a standalone information technology network, commercial base stations and other facilities to support older capabilities like 4G and wifi.

NIST also identified datasets and models created by the 5G mmWave Channel Model Alliance, which is currently developing testing methods and tools to accurately measure 5G capacity for everyday use cases.

The alliance has so far established best practices for instrumentation use and developed models for 5G communication scenarios encompassing offices, outdoor areas and shopping malls.

“Until recently, few models or measurements have existed at frequencies where 5G systems will operate,” said Kate Remley, an NIST engineer and co-chair of the alliance. “Having a number of representative channel models allows system designers to develop electronics that will operate reliably in common environments.”

NIST’s announcement comes after the Department of Defense issued its final request for prototype proposals for 5G testbed experiments including studies on spectrum sharing at military installations.