The National Institute of Standards and Technology has pushed back the release of its revised cybersecurity standards for Department of Defense contractors until after the review of a related set of standards is completed, Inside Defense reported Friday.

NIST delayed its issuance of Special Publication 800-171 Revision 2, known as “Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations,” due to the Office of Management and Budget’s pending completion of its review of SP 800-53. Revision 5 of SP 800-53 was originally intended to cover controls on supply chain, system design, privacy and cyber resiliency matters.

NIST noted that it put the release of SP 800-171 on hold “due to dependencies on SP 800-53.” SP 800-171 includes guidelines for cyber incident reports that DoD contractors handling unclassified information must be able to achieve.

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.

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.

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.