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DOE Funding Vehicle Energy Efficiency Projects
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DOE Funding Vehicle Energy Efficiency Projects


Jeff Brody

The Department of Energy is investing $59M in 43 projects to develop new vehicle technologies such as batteries, electric drive systems, alternative fuels and engines. The projects would help DOE bolster national security, boost the country’s dominance in the energy industry, foster economic growth and reduce transportation costs for U.S. citizens, the department said Friday.

“At DOE, we support a broad portfolio of technologies, generating the knowledge needed for industry to further develop and commercialize affordable, secure and reliable transportation systems,” said Mark Menezes, undersecretary of energy.

The department hopes the projects will result to powertrains, fuels and mobility systems that support energy efficiency.

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Report: Cyber Attacks to Federal Systems Decreased by 12 Percent in FY 2018
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Report: Cyber Attacks to Federal Systems Decreased by 12 Percent in FY 2018


Jeff Brody

The Office of Management and Budget has found that cybersecurity breaches faced by federal agencies dropped 12 percent from 35,000 to 31,000 in fiscal year 2018, Fifth Domain reported Saturday.

The FISMA FY 2018 Annual Report to Congress states that almost 7,000 of the cyber attacks resulted from phishing scams and that 9,600 cases were classified under “improper usage” or “any incident resulting from violation of an organization’s acceptable usage policies by an authorized user.” OMB noted that the federal government is facing common shortfalls including inconsistent patch management as well as lack of data protection, network segmentation, authentication procedures and constant monitoring.

In addition, the report found that agencies couldn’t determine the causes of 27 percent of the cyber attacks. In fiscal 2018, the federal government funneled almost $15 billion for cybersecurity efforts. The Department of Defense accounted for more than half of the reported amount.

T-Rex Solutions Ranked on Inc.’s 5000 Fastest Growing Companies List for Fourth Time; Sean Murphy Quoted
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T-Rex Solutions Ranked on Inc.’s 5000 Fastest Growing Companies List for Fourth Time; Sean Murphy Quoted


Jeff Brody

T-Rex Solutions announced on Monday that the company has been ranked as one of the top 5000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S by Inc. On the list, T-Rex is the fastest growing company among mid-tier Government Services Sector firms with revenues above $100M.

“We are humbled to have moved up so significantly on the list among our government sector peer group. With growth comes new challenges but we are proud of the federal IT modernization projects that have brought us this far. Now our challenge is to keep up the pace, and we are working hard to do so,” says Sean Murphy, T-Rex’s chief development and innovation officer.

The Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth over a three-year period. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by the first week of the starting calendar year, and therefore able to show three full calendar years of sales.

T-Rex’s 2018 revenue of $259.4 million, represents a 3-year growth of 1,622 percent. The company was also ranked as #23 for Top Washington, DC Companies and #14 for Top Maryland Companies.

About T-Rex Solutions

Established in 1999, T-Rex Solutions is a proven mid-tier IT professional services firm, ranked the #4 government cloud vendor by Bloomberg. T-Rex is an agile, dominant force in government IT modernization and transformation. The company leverages skills and professional services with powerful next-gen technology to relentlessly drive innovation and blaze new paths in solving our clients’ complex challenges. T-Rex has deep technical expertise in Cloud Adoption and Infrastructure Optimization, Cybersecurity, Data Engineering and Analytics, Systems Integration and Development, and Mission Critical Services.

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Capital One Agrees to Acquire KippsDeSanto & Co.; Bob Kipps, Kevin DeSanto Quoted
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Capital One Agrees to Acquire KippsDeSanto & Co.; Bob Kipps, Kevin DeSanto Quoted

 

Capital One Agrees to Acquire KippsDeSanto & Co.; Bob Kipps, Kevin DeSanto Quoted
Kevin DeSanto

Capital One has signed an agreement to acquire KippsDeSanto & Co., a leading investment banking firm focused on serving growth-oriented aerospace/defense, government services and technology companies, Capital One announced on Monday.

“Joining Capital One was a natural next step in the growth plan for us at KippsDeSanto,” said Kevin DeSanto, co-founder and managing director of KippsDeSanto. “Beyond the M&A advice we currently offer, our clients will now have access to additional solutions offered by Capital One.”

The acquisition is expected to close late in the third quarter of 2019. KippsDeSanto will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Capital One, and will continue to operate under its KippsDeSanto brand.

Capital One Agrees to Acquire KippsDeSanto & Co.; Bob Kipps, Kevin DeSanto Quoted
Bob Kipps

“All of KippsDeSanto’s 30 professionals are excited to support Capital One’s thrust into middle market M&A,” said Bob Kipps, co-founder and managing director of KippsDeSanto.  “With Capital One, a top 10 U.S. Commercial Bank, we found an innovative, technology savvy financial institution with a similar culture and business values.”

About KippsDeSanto & Co. 

KippsDeSanto & Co. is a leading investment banking firm focused on serving growth-oriented aerospace/defense, government services and technology companies.  KippsDeSanto is focused on delivering exceptional M&A and financing transaction results to its clients via leveraging our scale, creativity and industry experience.  The firm helps market leaders realize their full strategic value. Having advised on over 100 industry transactions, KippsDeSanto is recognized for its analytical rigor, market insight and broad industry relationships.

 

GAO: DoD Used Hiring Flexibilities for Majority of Civilian Acquisition Hires Over Past 5 Years
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GAO: DoD Used Hiring Flexibilities for Majority of Civilian Acquisition Hires Over Past 5 Years


Jeff Brody

The Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Defense has used human capital authorities for 90 percent of 44,291 DoD civilian personnel hiring actions from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2018. DoD also increased spending on recruitment, retention and relocation bonuses as well as student loan payments for non-military workforce from $13.9M in FY 2014 to $33.7M in FY 2018, GAO said in a report published Thursday.

The government watchdog agency added it found the Pentagon’s Office of Human Capital Initiatives does not evaluate or track the use of such flexibilities on a regular basis and that the lack of monitoring efforts may prevent HCI from identifying any challenges, inconsistencies or areas of improvement.

GAO recommends that the HCI office monitor how DoD utilize civilian hiring authorities granted to the department. The Pentagon spends more than $300B on contracting efforts annually and its acquisition professionals help maximize the department’s buying power, GAO said.

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Cybercom Posts North Korea-Linked Malware on Security Research Portal
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Cybercom Posts North Korea-Linked Malware on Security Research Portal


Jeff Brody

U.S. Cyber Command has uploaded a sample of malware that is associated with a North Korean advanced persistent threat group and designed to perform data exfiltration through a backdoor, TechCrunch reported Friday.

Cybercom posted the “Electric Fish” tunneling virus to VirusTotal, an online database built for security research purposes. The upload offers insight into cybersecurity threats from nation-state hackers, the report said. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI determined in May that North Korea uses the malware linked to the APT38 hacking group.

Security company FireEye said in October it found that APT38, which primarily targets financial institutions, could stay within a target’s network for an average of 155 days. The financial-crime group has conducted operations against more than 16 organizations worldwide, FireEye noted.

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Beth Ripley: VA Seeks to Transform Patient Care With 3D Printing
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Beth Ripley: VA Seeks to Transform Patient Care With 3D Printing

Beth Ripley: VA Seeks to Transform Patient Care With 3D Printing

Beth Ripley, a senior innovation fellow at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said VA is collaborating with academic and government stakeholders to create opportunities for workforce training and to develop new tools as it works to advance 3D printing, Nextgov reported Friday.

“So why is VA interested in 3D printing? Again, it gets back to that mission: trying to provide the best services possible to our patients,” Ripley said during Nextgov’s Emerging Technology Summit. “We are trying very deliberately to get 3D printers into as many VA hospitals as possible, into the hands of as many different types of staff as possible, to try to start unlocking these possibilities.”

Ripley, who chairs the Veterans Health Administration’s 3D printing advisory committee, discussed the need for unique skills in the field of medical 3D printing and the department’s goal to establish an initial curriculum to train the future and current workforce.

CBP Systems Outage Leads to Long Queues at Some Airports
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CBP Systems Outage Leads to Long Queues at Some Airports


Jeff Brody

The Customs and Border Protection encountered an outage with its systems that resulted in long lines of international travelers waiting to be cleared at some airports nationwide, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. CBP issued a tweet Friday evening saying the systems were getting back to normal.

“The affected systems are coming back online and travelers are being processed. CBP will continue to monitor the incident. There is no indication the disruption was malicious in nature at this time,” the agency said in the tweet.

CBP said officers used alternative procedures to continue to process passengers on international flights.

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Navy Creates New Position to Manage IT, Cybersecurity Matters; Thomas Modly Quoted
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Navy Creates New Position to Manage IT, Cybersecurity Matters; Thomas Modly Quoted


Jeff Brody
Thomas Modly

The Department of the Navy has created the dual-hatted role of special assistant to the secretary of the Navy and chief information officer as part of a restructuring effort, Federal News Network reported Friday. 

Thomas Modly, undersecretary of the Navy, said the restructuring was the result of an external review in March, which found that the Navy’s warfighting capability faces an “existential threat” due to the service’s poor cybersecurity posture.

“The responsibility needs to be elevated to senior levels in the department,” Modly told reporters. “The entire concept of cyber hygiene and creating a more cyber conscious culture was missing in the Department of the Navy, and needed to be corrected immediately, which means you needed to elevate this to a much more senior level so that the resources could be aligned towards that.”

The special assistant secretary will oversee cyber and information technology issues across the Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps and will be responsible for four new directorates led by a chief information security officer, a chief digital data officer, a chief data officer and a chief technology officer. According to an industry source, Aaron Weis, a senior adviser to the DoD CIO who led the development of the department’s cloud computing strategy, would assume the dual-hatted role.

GAO: Army Needs to Assess Risks in Multi-Domain Reorganization Plan
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GAO: Army Needs to Assess Risks in Multi-Domain Reorganization Plan


Jeff Brody

The Government Accountability Office found through a study that the U.S. Army lacks personnel and risk assessments for new cyber and electronic warfare units intended to deter foreign threats. The Army intends to accelerate the activation of these units that sometimes initiate without cyber training and equipment modernization, GAO said Thursday.

The service branch is reorganizing its forces with a multi-domain approach and boosted focus on cyber operations by 2028. The accelerated rate of this effort leaves out required assessments of staffing, equipment and training risks, GAO noted.

The lack of these assessments would leave Army leadership unaware of potential future issues. GAO recommends the Army to assess these risks with consideration to the Intelligence, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space unit, the 915th Cyber Warfare Support Battalion and other units being activated at accelerated rates.

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