Sens. Tina Smith, D-Minn., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Mark Warner, D-Va., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., plan to introduce a bill providing for the back pay of contractor employees who have not received salaries due to the government shutdown. The shutdown has reduced the work hours and pay of contractor workers such as janitors, food staff and security personnel in the government, Smith’s office said Friday.

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“This is about fairness—American workers shouldn’t be forced to go without a paycheck simply because of President Trump’s government shutdown,” said Smith.

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Warner noted that Virginia-based families and other Americans are experiencing the shutdown’s effects, and now rely on congress to address the issue.

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“They have nothing to do with this Trump Shutdown, and we must ensure they are held harmless from this political dysfunction,” said Van Hollen.

The U.S. Navy has decided to designate information about the status of the service’s first unmanned warship as “classified” following initial tests of its first prototype, National Defense reported Monday.

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In November, ONR tested the prototype Sea Hunter ship outside Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. ONR tested the ship’s endurance and range capabilities to establish “operator trust in safe reliable operations,” according to Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman, a spokesperson for U.S. Pacific Fleet. Following the demonstration, the unmanned anti-submarine warfare ship’s status was marked as classified, said ONR spokesman Bob Freeman.

The Navy received authority of the Sea Hunter in January of last year after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency transferred the prototype ship to the service branch’s Office of Naval Research to continue development.

DARPA built the ship under its Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel program, which was renamed as Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vehicle under ONR.

President Trump has signed two bipartisan bills into law establishing a bug bounty pilot program at the Department of Homeland Security and will require the agency to disclose all cyber vulnerabilities. The two bills introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, aim to strengthen cybersecurity at DHS, Hassan’s office said Friday. 

One legislation will leverage ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities in networks and information technology infrastructure at DHS. The Hack DHS Act will establish a bug bounty program that will use the similar approach of the Department of Defense and major tech companies. The second bill from Hassan and Portman will also require the DHS to launch a program managingn its vulnerabilities. The Public-Private Cybersecurity Cooperation Act aims to help the agency speed up the process to fix IT issues by regularly disclosing cyber vulnerabilities through the program.

“Our legislation draws upon the vast expertise of hackers and security experts in our country to identify vulnerabilities and report them to the people in positions to fix those flaws in our systems,” Portman said.

A center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has begun to distribute brochures, videos, flyers and other informative materials to increase awareness about foreign intelligence threats and help U.S. companies protect themselves from nation-state actors.

“American companies are squarely in the cross-hairs of well-financed nation-state actors, who are routinely breaching private sector networks, stealing proprietary data, and compromising supply chains,” William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in a statement published Monday.

“The attacks are persistent, aggressive, and cost our nation jobs, economic advantage, and hundreds of billions of dollars,” Evanina added.

The materials under the “Know the Risk, Raise Your Shield” campaign suggest best practices to help the private sector safeguard their data, networks and other assets as well as tackle supply chain risks, spear-phishing, social media deception, economic espionage, foreign travel risks, social engineering and mobile device safety.

NCSC started to disseminate a report on foreign intelligence initiatives, which intend to steal U.S. trade secrets, intellectual property and other proprietary data through cyber space.
 

The Department of Energy plans to award a total of $16M for a research program aimed at integrating new data with computer models in order to accurately represent climate and terrestrial phenomena, the DOE said Friday.

The DOE plans to provide $5M for research into terrestrial events and $11M for atmospheric research on clouds and aerosols for a period of two to three years.

The terrestrial research’s first track will study the movement of nutrients, carbon and water; while the second focus will concentrate on the impact of phenomena such as floods, fires, hurricanes and the rising of sea levels on the vegetation and nutrient cycles of coastal areas.

Atmospheric research under the program will utilize data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility operated by the DOE Office of Science.

“For decades, DOE has been a leading contributor in advancing our knowledge of both atmospheric and terrestrial processes. This research will result in a better grasp of critical factors affecting the earth system,” said Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar.

The DOE will use a competitive, peer-reviewed process to select universities and nonprofit organizations who will participate in the project.