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Ellen Lord: DoD ‘Fourth Estate’ Review Looks at Agencies’ Warfighting Functions
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Ellen Lord: DoD ‘Fourth Estate’ Review Looks at Agencies’ Warfighting Functions


Jeff Brody
Ellen Lord

Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and a 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the Department of Defense’s review of “fourth estate” agencies could impact offices that have no direct ties to warfighting, Defense News reported Tuesday.

“As we’ve gone through a lot of the different areas, if it isn’t war fighting, if it’s something that one of the other agencies or the other departments across government has asked us to do, or if it’s something that should be a function of another department because it’s not about lethality, it will get cut,” Lord said Monday during a panel at Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

She said the Defense Acquisition University, Defense Threat Reduction Agency and other A&S offices have undergone the Pentagon’s review process and that the department might seek congressional help as it works to find efficiencies through the review process.

“I think one of the greatest outcomes of this process is finding out where we are being held by statute to do things that might not, today, be in our best interest, where they were five, 10, 15 years ago,” Lord said. “So we will go back to Congress and ask them for relief in certain areas where we think if we do things differently, we can gain some efficiencies.”

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DARPA Pursues Effort to Better Patch Legacy Software
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DARPA Pursues Effort to Better Patch Legacy Software


Jeff Brody

The Defense Advanced Projects Agency has launched an effort to address issues in patching legacy software for mission-critical systems.

DARPA said Monday its new Assured Micropatching program seeks to develop technologies that accelerate and aid in the analysis, modification and correction of legacy software binaries.

The AMP effort will leverage micropatches that augment binaries in small scales to maintain precision and reduce the possibilty of side effects.

“Assured Micropatching aims to create and apply fixes in an automated and assured way, giving us a means to expedite the time to test and deploy the patched system from months and years to just days,” said Bratus, said Sergey Bratus, a program manager at DARPA’s Information Innovation Office.

DARPA will host a series of challenges across the AMP program to examine the effectiveness of micropatching technology across legacy systems and various mission applications.

The agency also posted a FedBizOpps notice to solicit for proposals under AMP. Interested parties may submit responses through Nov. 20.

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DoD Concludes ‘Hack the Proxy’ Ethical Hacking Effort
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DoD Concludes ‘Hack the Proxy’ Ethical Hacking Effort


Jeff Brody

The Department of Defense has conducted a bug bounty program with ethical hackers in an effort to identify vulnerabilities in the DoD Information Network, Fifth Domain reported Monday.

Ethical hacking firm HackerOne took part in DoD’s “Hack the Proxy” effort and discovered medium/low to high severity vulnerabilities in the department’s virtual private networks and proxies. Last month, the Pentagon allocated around $33.8K for valid vulnerabilities crowdsourced from participants around the world.

“Validating capabilities, closing previously unknown vulnerabilities, and enforcing standards improve our ability to conduct multidomain military operations,” said U.S. Cyber Command’s Master Sgt. Michael Methven. “Hack the Proxy is an important approach that leverages crowd-sourced talent for an outside-in view of our vulnerabilities.”

Cybercom sponsored the event in partnership with HackerOne, Defense Digital Service and DoD.

Marine Corps, NIST Launch Mobile Security Initiatives
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Marine Corps, NIST Launch Mobile Security Initiatives


Jeff Brody

Renata Spinks, cyber technology officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, said the Defense Information Systems Agency is working with the corps on improving the security of its mobile devices, Federal News Network reported Monday.

Spinks told attendees at an Advanced Technology Academic Research Center event that the Marine Corps intends to increase visibility in its networks to identify all of its connected devices and implement automation. She added that consolidating data centers and networks will help the corps better visualize its digital ecosystem.

Gema Howell, an information technology security engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said the agency released a draft cybersecurity guide titled “1800-21 Mobile Device Security: Corporate-Owned Personally-Enabled (COPE)” that integrates the best practices of government and industry.

“We worked with industry to get some commercially available tools in-house to put the standards to work,” she noted.

SBA OIG: Agency Addresses Majority of Mgmt Issues
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SBA OIG: Agency Addresses Majority of Mgmt Issues


Jeff Brody

Hannibal Ware, the Small Business Administration’s inspector general, has reported progress in addressing significant issues faced by the agency across operations. The agency has implemented past recommendations and has made progress in multiple areas of management, SBA Office of the Inspector General said Friday.

The report shows the agency has either fully implemented or made substantial progress on 23 of 25 issues across eight areas including small business contracting, information technology leadership and human capital.

Other areas are: grant management oversight, SBA loan program risk management, business development program, disaster assistance and reduction of improper payments for quality assurance.

SBA exhibited limited progress in only two issues related to the agency’s business development program. The agency’s OIG delivered the report in accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act.

Mercer University, Robins Air Force Base to Construct Software Dev’t Center Under New Partnership
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Mercer University, Robins Air Force Base to Construct Software Dev’t Center Under New Partnership


Jeff Brody

The Robins Air Force Base and Mercer University have partnered to build a software development center that will develop applications for the U.S. Air Force.

Mercer said Monday the facility is slated to inaugurate in 2020 and is designed after the service branch’s Kessel Run experimentation laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base.

The center will also serve as a collaborative space between Mercer’s computer science and engineering departments and the 402nd Software Maintenance Group from Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex.

“I think it’s going to be a great recruitment tool for Robins, and I think it’s going to be great for our students to see the opportunities available through the Air Force,” said William Underwood, president at Mercer.

The Kessen Run laboratory is established in 2018 to support the Air Force’s maintenance schedules, F-35 flights, battle management efforts and air refueling logistics.

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Lockheed, Raytheon to Demo Precision Strike Missiles Under Army Modernization Program
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Lockheed, Raytheon to Demo Precision Strike Missiles Under Army Modernization Program


Jeff Brody

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are slated to test their precision strike missile offerings in support of the U.S. Army’s Long Range Precision Fires initiative, DefenseNews reported Monday.

Efforts under the tests are intended to help the Army adjust the maximum range baseline for the service branch’s planned precision strike missile. According to the report, the companies will conduct two more tests respectively prior to the conclusion of their missile’s technology maturation and risk reduction phases.

Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, head of LRPF program at the Army, said the range requirement may reach 342 miles from a current baseline of 310 miles based on the results provided by the firms.

“We want to make sure the performance matches their models or gives them an opportunity to update their models, and then give them a chance to come back with an updated estimate of what they think they can really do,” said Rafferty

The LRPF program seeks to build a missile system that will replace the service’s Army Tactical Missile System. The Army will select and deploy a precision strike missile in 2023.

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James McConville: Army Launching Efforts to Meet 2035 Modernization Goals
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James McConville: Army Launching Efforts to Meet 2035 Modernization Goals


Jeff Brody
James McConville

The U.S. Army is working to achieve its goal of establishing global multidomain operations by 2035 as part of its modernization strategy unveiled in 2016, Defense News reported Monday. The strategy’s six priorities encompass future vertical lift, long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicles, air and missile defense, lethality and next-generation network capabilities.

In an interview with Breaking Defense, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said the service is establishing organizations focused on multidomain combat, including security force assistance brigades.

“I can envision us standing up organizations that are focused around providing long-range precision effects that can be used below the level of armed conflict in the areas of intelligence, information, cyber, electronic warfare and space,” he added.

The Army plans to begin initial fielding of technologies under its cross-functional teams from fiscal 2020 to 2022, according to a draft document of the strategy. Training, integration and implementation is expected to take place from fiscal 2023 to 2025.

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Serco Secures $49M IDIQ Contract to Deliver System Engineering/Technical Services for U.S. Navy; Dave Dacquino Quoted
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Serco Secures $49M IDIQ Contract to Deliver System Engineering/Technical Services for U.S. Navy; Dave Dacquino Quoted


Serco Secures $49M IDIQ Contract to Deliver System Engineering/Technical Services for U.S. Navy; Dave Dacquino Quoted
Dave Dacquino

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center has selected Serco to receive a potential five-year, $49 million Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to deliver system engineering technical services for the Submarine High Data Rate (SubHDR) program, Serco announced on Tuesday.

“This was a key recompete win for our business and we are proud to have the opportunity to continue delivering systems engineering services to the Navy through this contract vehicle,” said Dave Dacquino, chairman and CEO at Serco Inc.

Serco will continue to perform repair and overhauls to the SubHDR Antenna Pedestal Group (APG) as well as perform evaluation and repair to related sub-components. In addition, the work on this contract supports a mission-critical system that provides the U.S. submarine fleet the ability to send and receive information such as secure wide-band communications, voice and data traffic, imagery and video teleconferencing.

“With many of the SATCOM and radar systems both on ships and shore requiring maintenance and repairs, our teams are hard at work delivering sustainment and obsolescence engineering services that enable customers to extend the lives of existing systems,” Dacquino added.

The majority of work will be performed out of Serco’s facility in Ludlow, Massachusetts.

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Jake Zimmerman Joins Northrop Grumman as Senior Business Development Manager
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Jake Zimmerman Joins Northrop Grumman as Senior Business Development Manager


Jeff Brody

Northrop Grumman has announced that Jake Zimmerman, formerly of Accelera Solutions, has joined the company as a senior business development manager. 

In the role, Zimmerman will develop strategies to build a pipeline, qualifying opportunities and manage all aspects of account/territory growth and drive customer relationships as well as work closely with customers to identify and shape near-term and long-term requirements amd interface with Northrop Grumman Government Relations to accomplish customer executive level shaping.

Most recently, Zimmerman served as a public sector account executive with Accelera Solutions between June 2018 and his current role. He worked directly with the Accelera leadership team to set corporate growth strategy and sales process. He was responsible for marketing and bidding strategic mobility, cloud migration, DevSecOps and security compliance opportunities within Civilian agencies and Department of Defense components. 

Prior to his tenure with Accelera Solutions, Zimmerman served PwC from Nov. 2012 to Jan. 2016 as a senior associate and as a customer relationship executive from Feb. 2016 to May 2018.

In addition, Zimmerman has also held a range of positions with STG, Integrated Communication Solutions, Command-Control LLC, SimAuthor and SAIC. He’s also recently earned two certifications from Amazon Web Services as a Business and Technical Professional. 

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