The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) intends to standardize language in government contracts with cloud service providers to clarify terms with regard to security liability, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

“OMB has just stood up a [program management office] to work on a cloud [service level agreement] template for the federal government to be attached to every contract,” Thomas Santucci, director of the Data Center and Cloud Optimization Infrastructure program management office at the General Services Administration, said Wednesday at a Digital Government Institute-hosted virtual conference.

He noted that security was one of the topics cited in developing the new templates for cloud contracts.

Santucci added that he believes there is a need to update cloud SLAs and that his team is working on that within GSA. He also mentioned how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some agencies to advance their move to the cloud.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has tested six commercially available contactless fingerprinting technologies and found that such platforms performed better than contact-based devices when scanning multiple prints against a database.

NIST said Tuesday it released an interagency report titled “Interoperability Assessment 2019: Contactless-to-Contact Fingerprint Capture” and used four smartphone-based contactless technologies as well as two standalone contactless platforms to fingerprint 200 volunteers. The agency said it also used two contact devices as part of the study.

According to NIST’s report, contactless devices performed with a 60 to 70 percent accuracy compared to contact devices’ 99.5 percent record for single-finger capture. However, NIST found that contactless devices reached around 90 to 95 percent accuracy and garnered low “false positive” rates when scanning multiple finger combinations.

“One objective of the NIST study was to evaluate the interoperability of these contactless representations with older print impressions,” NIST said. “In short, how well do the new contactless devices match their scans with existing database entries?”

The report will serve as an update to NIST’s report on contactless capture issued in 2018 to aid organizations in deploying fingerprint-scanning capabilities.

The U.S. Marine Corps has commenced an effort to modernize the infantry weapons, complementary optics and other related systems used in the service.

USMC said Tuesday its Program Manager for Infantry Weapons or PM IW is working to align with the vision of Gen. David Berger, Marine Corps commandant, to thrive in the competition of power.

The service branch intends to adopt and employ many new infantry systems within the next 10 years.

For example, PM IW has already begun to purchase the Modular Handgun System, a pistol that allows for modular grip changing to accommodate a variety of hand sizes. MCSC plans to field this new gun in the current fiscal year as a replacement to current marine pistols.

The command is also further implementing the M27 automatic rifle that has received positive feedback since the weapon’s initial launching nine years ago.

Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division pursues prototyping of autonomous detection systems via other transaction authority, an alternative, accelerated procurement approach.

NSWC Crane said Tuesday it employs Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems or S2MARTS OTAs to rapidly develop and test the Autonomous Fiber Optic Sensor Network prototype.

OTAs streamline contracting processes to allow for faster and more flexible research and development. This approach applies to nontraditional contractors and other special cases.

A-FOSN is designed to detect cases of intrusions in naval facilities either afloat or on the ground.

"This solution can detect these various potential threats in real-time and across diverse terrain," said Brooke Pyne, director of S2MARTS.

Julie Doerge, who leads NSWC Crane's sensor qualification laboratory, said the S2MARTS OTAs have allowed the Navy to remain up to date with industry's latest technology.

The U.S. Space Force conducted critical design review efforts for a weather system follow-on microwave technology built to transmit weather data to warfighters.

The platform also received a Milestone B certification and a program approval after the service branch reviewed supporting regulatory and statutory requirements, USSF said Monday.

The WSF-M program seeks to develop weather technologies that will work to facilitate mission operations and planning through the provision of weather data to meteorologists. Ball Aerospace secured a $94M contract in 2017 to carry out system design and risk assessment services for the platform.

The milestone standardizes the microwave technology's program execution standards such as schedule caps and potential costs.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is working with the U.S. Air Force to test physical cases designed to bolster the security of mobile devices used by airmen, Fedscoop reported Tuesday.

These cases cover cameras and shield phones with signal jamming and biometrics to allow the devices for use in facilities with strict security requirements. The effort aims to boost the security of commercial devices and also implement stricter access management.

Steve Wallace, who leads DISA’s emerging technology directorate, said tests will resume when the COVID-19 pandemic ends. He and Frank Konieczny, USAF's chief technology officer, spoke about the effort at a virtual event with Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.