Juliane Gallina, the CIA’s chief information officer, said the agency is looking to replace fax machines with the use of email through the Gray Magic program to facilitate communications between the agency and vendors when it comes to information technology acquisition, FCW reported Wednesday.

“It’s a new secure network designed specifically to allow industry partners to have their own direct communications and collaboration with government to help us facilitate acquisition,” she said of the program, which is in the beta phase.

Gallina, who joined the CIA in April, mentioned her team’s efforts to manage the agency’s IT contracts and cloud adoption.

“Almost all of our major IT contracts are being turned over the next 20-24 months,” she said. “We’re seeing innovation today come from industry in many of the cloud-based tools.”

Defense experts said the weapons systems showcased for the first time during the National Day parade in Beijing Tuesday demonstrate China’s increasing focus on the development of unmanned systems, missile force and electronic warfare, the Wall Street Journal reported.

One of the weapons displayed at the parade is the DF-17 hypersonic missile. “There’s simply nothing like it in any Western military force,” Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said of the missile. “China is now, in some spheres of military technology, ahead of any Western nation.”

Other weapons paraded by the People’s Liberation Army to mark the Communist Party rule’s 70th anniversary are the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, Gongji-11 stealth combat aerial drone, DR-8 supersonic aerial drone and the HSU001 unmanned underwater vehicle.

“This parade illustrates the PLA’s embrace of unmanned operations as critical elements of future combat across all domains of warfare,” said Elsa Kania, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

According to the report, the parade is likely to incite calls for stricter controls on tech transfers in the U.S. amid the competition between the country and China for geopolitical and technological superiority.

Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic tested a radio frequency detection tool to hide warfighters’ positions through electronic emissions, National Defense reported Tuesday. Representatives from the service branch and various government agencies used the Spectrum Hunter tool during the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise East event in July.

Spectrum Hunter is an augmented reality-based hands-free device that will help users view RF waves via heavy sunglasses attached to a headset. NIWC is developing design updates in line with the results of the demonstration.

“While they were impressed with the software capabilities such as the augmented user interface, adaptability and potential for interoperability with other systems, they also pointed out the desire for increased durability and agility of the prototype,” said Jason Bartlett, a scientist at NIWC Atlantic.

Larry Grossman, acting chief information security officer of the Federal Aviation Administration, has said that the agency intends to reduce the amount of security tools present in their networks, Fifth Domain reported Tuesday. During a recent Northern Virginia Technology Council event, Grossman told attendees that his team intends to remove two products for every network security tool the FAA acquires.

Paul Beckman, the Department of Homeland Security’s CISO, said the agency also has “too many” cybersecurity tools and will use products like Lockheed Martin’s Kill Chain to assess their efficiency. The Lockheed-built simulation platform will mimic a cyberattack throughout a network to evaluate security tools’ capacity for identifying vulnerabilities.

He noted that efforts to identify underperforming technologies will help the department identify items it’s “certain not to be reinvesting in next budget cycle.”

The Food and Drug Administration has released additional information on certain cybersecurity vulnerabilities that threaten hospital network systems and medical devices. Cyber actors may remotely take advantage of URGENT/11 vulnerabilities to disrupt services, leak information and alter devices, FDA said Tuesday.

Department of Homeland Security originally announced these vulnerabilities in July 2019, and has since not received reports on associated cases. FDA’s new information includes input on the vulnerabilities’ sources and recommendations for risk reduction.

IPnet, a third-party communications software, contains URGENT/11 vulnerabilities. Some medical devices may still contain the IPnet due to some manufacturers that still hold license for the software. FDA is also aware of the vulnerabilities’ presence in VxWorks, Operating System Embedded, INTEGRITY, ThreadX, ITRON and ZebOS operating systems.

The agency recommends manufacturers to coordinate with medical care providers to form mitigation plans against URGENT/11 vulnerabilities.