The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate is set to publish a report later this year to outline the results of its recent assessment of three field portable gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers used to chemically analyze substances. 

DHS S&T’s System Assessment and Validation for Emergency Responders Program developed the evaluation to assess the field instruments’ capabilities and help emergency responder organizations decide on which instrument is best suited to their needs and requirements, the department said Tuesday.

During the assessment, a group of seven first responder evaluators operated the chemical identification devices and tested their capabilities to analyze samples from common, non-toxic, consumer products. 

The evaluators, which included policemen and firefighters, rated the affordability, deployability, usability, capability and maintainability of each instrument based on their needs in the field.

DHS S&T collaborated with the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on the assessment, which took place at the Seattle Joint Training Facility in Washington. 

The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command’s engineering division has completed the template for a ‘scorecard’ system, which can measure the levels of cybersecurity of various organizations, for data comparison and decision-making purposes.

An organization’s cybersecurity’s effectiveness in sensing cyber attacks, countering negative effects, and performing post-attack recovery procedures will be evaluated by the scorecard Cybersecurity Figure of Merit scorecard, the U.S. Navy reported Tuesday.

The Tactical Networks Program Office, or PMW 160, used these items, which were taken from the recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cybersecurity framework, to conduct a pilot study of the CFOM at the Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services.

“Cybersecurity Figure of Merit is a powerful tool to assess the impact of your cybersecurity investment,” says Capt. Kurt Rothenhaus, program manager at PMW 160. “For the CANES program we were able to use the tool to articulate to our senior stakeholders how resourcing areas of the network would improve the cybersecurity resiliency in a measurable and consistent manner.”

NAVWAR’s CFOM team intends to investigate the possibility of extending the scorecard’s capacities to be capable of assessing Navy risk possibilities and budget choices.

Katie Arrington, special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for acquisition for cyber, said the Department of Defense’s new cybersecurity certification model seeks to help small businesses comply with cyber controls through a tiered rating system depending on the platforms they are asked to protect, Fifth Domain reported Tuesday.

Arrington stated that the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification seeks to strengthen the security of small businesses, which are being targeted by nation state-backed cyber attacks, and level the playing field when it comes to cybersecurity.

In September, the Pentagon issued a draft version of CMMC, which establishes cyber practices and standards meant to help the defense industrial base reduce exfiltration of controlled unclassified information.

The draft CMMC v0.4 has five levels ranging from basic cyber hygiene to highly advanced practices and each level has specific practices and activities that need to be implemented by stakeholders to achieve a capability.