Recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told the press that the Defense Department is preparing a $700B budget proposal in addition to a $733B draft that has already been prepared, in line with President Trump’s earlier call for spending cuts, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.

In October, President Trump instructed his cabinet secretaries to reduce their upcoming budget proposals by 5 percent, indicating that “[we] know what the new budget is for the Defense Department; it will probably be $700 billion.”

Shanahan explained, however, that a “smaller” defense budget is already being prepared.

The DoD official said he wanted to ensure that the president is well-informed of the trade-offs that would have to be made should a $700B defense budget be enacted.

President Trump needs to have “an awareness of what that number really translates to in terms of performance here for the department,” Shanahan stated.

An official with the Department of Homeland Security recently told House lawmakers that a Russian campaign is currently underway with the aim of compromising the process controls of government and private organizations belonging to critical U.S. industries.

Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communication at the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, spoke during a joint hearing between the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection and the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. She said Russian attackers have been attempting to penetrate the industrial control systems of select U.S. business and government entities since at least 2015.

Though Manfra did not specify which entities have been targeted, she did indicate that they belonged to the aviation, energy, manufacturing, nuclear and water sectors. Manfra explained that the Russian campaign was detected through a collaborative effort involving the DHS, the FBI and various international partners. She went on to describe incident response efforts that the DHS and FBI have carried out to mitigate the effects of the Russian intrusion.

Nevertheless, Manfra emphasized Homeland Security’s position that the attack is still in progress, and that “threat actors are actively pursuing their ultimate long-term campaign objectives.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has said the Defense Department is on track to establish a U.S. Space Command and a Space Development Agency in early 2019, Space News reported Thursday. 

The official expects the DoD to continue moving forward in its space reorganization efforts, as the agency may not face any congressional resistance in the coming year and existing executive authorities can be used to set up the new space command and agency. 

Shanahan said the Space Command may stand in the first quarter of 2019 if the Senate immediately confirms a four-star commander to lead the organization. 

However, he noted establishing the Space Development Agency may require more time.

DoD officials are still in talks over possible leaders of the agency and their specific tasks. 

Shanahan is also leading a Space Governance Committee tasked to create a bill to establish President Trump’s proposed Space Force.  

He said the panel aims to submit a legislative proposal that would establish the new service on Oct. 1 of next year. 

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson estimated that forming the Space Force and Space Command would cost $13B over the next five years. 

The General Services Administration has proposed a new rule that would require contractors to report cyber threats and provide GSA and client agencies authority to access breached systems, Nextgov reported Thursday.

The agency introduced the policy as an amendment to the GSA Acquisition Regulation, according to a regulatory roadmap obtained by the publication.

The proposed rule would direct contractors to disclose any cyber incident that undermines the availability, integrity and confidentiality of information systems or data “owned or managed by or on behalf of the U.S. government.”

Contractors would also be required to save images of breached platforms and provide incident reporting training for employees.

GSA plans to issue in April a notice of proposed rulemaking with a comment period that will run through June, according to the notice.