The Department of Defense, General Services Administration and NASA are issuing an interim final rule prohibiting agencies from purchasing telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from selected Chinese vendors. The rule amends the Federal Acquisition Regulation to include a section of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act and covers all existing indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity contracts seeking services or equipment for securing and monitoring critical government infrastructure. 

Blacklisted companies under the regulation include Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Dahua Technology and all other related subsidiaries and affiliates. The rule also bans equipment or services that the defense secretary, director of national intelligence and FBI “reasonably believes to be an entity owned or controlled by, or otherwise connected to, the government of a covered foreign country.”

DoD, GSA and NASA are modifying the System for Award Management to implement visibility on vendors’ use of offerings from the blacklisted vendors.

Federal agencies are launching reskilling programs to provide employees new career opportunities in the field of information technology, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Dorothy Aronson, chief information officer at the National Science Foundation, said NSF is overseeing a pilot to assess an online learning platform, Udacity, to help volunteers from agencies learn the skills needed to become data scientists or data analysts. Aronson, who co-chairs the Federal CIO Council’s workforce committee, said NSF will conduct a survey to identify employees’ skills gaps in data science.

“We’re hoping to team people up to look across the federal government to find where various training opportunities are and leverage the existing training tools. But we want to meet people where they are instead of requiring them to be at a certain level before they begin.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture launched a Senior Executive Service candidate development program to develop the next generation of chief information security officers and CIOs. Selected candidates will undergo formal training, seminars and assessments as well as submit a portfolio to the CIO/CISO Executive Resources Board once they complete the program.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, formerly known as the Defense Security Service, plans to reduce small business engagement after merging with the National Background Investigations Bureau, FCW reported Wednesday. DCSA’s small businesses goal would drop from 65 percent to below 10 percent as NBIB transfers to the Department of Defense, Elizabeth Mudd, DCSA’s small business program manager, said at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association event.

Originally from the Office of Personnel Management, NBIB will move to DCSA to serve as the federal government’s sole provider of security clearance, Federal News Network reported. Mudd said the reduction aims to boost the number of subcontractors supporting four prime programs related to background investigation, with $804M in NBIB small business funds coming.

DCSA will fully adopt its background security responsibilities in fiscal year 2020, Mudd noted.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is establishing a laboratory near its Fort Meade headquarters in Maryland to house a pilot program focusing on testing methods to develop zero-trust network architectures, Nextgov reported Wednesday. 

Jason Martin, acting director of DISA’s cyber directorate, said during a panel at the FCW Cybersecurity Summit that the agency and U.S. Cyber Command will launch and run the pilot program to study approaches for improving access and identity management on military networks. 

The program will establish a framework for monitoring access on various network layers; develop tools to manage access and identity; and deploy the tools across the Department of Defense. 

“[The efforts] will inform what we actually do need to build out, integrate and configure,” Martin told reporters. “It’s rethinking how we do continuous security.”

Michael Griffin, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, has urged the U.S. government to augment collaborative efforts with academic and industry partners. Griffin said the three sectors should drive partnerships to allow rapid development, conception and procurement of technologies, Naval Sea Systems Command said Wednesday. 

He cited various projects that utilized rapid approaches including the development of the Lockheed Martin-built SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Nighthawk aircraft systems. 

“The ability of the U.S. to innovate is what ended World War II and the Cold War,”  said Griffin. “That was fostered by a unique collaboration between university and academic research applied to problems of the day, government to waive the baton and industry to manufacture with pace.”