The U.S. Marine Corps is planning to update its Kaman K-Max helicopters to incorporate autonomous capabilities intended to support experimental cargo delivery operations, Flight Global said Thursday. 

Lt. Gen. Steven Rudder, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month that the service branch plans to modernize its two K-Max aircraft as part of its K-Max autonomy research effort and Marine Air Ground Task Force – Unmanned Expeditionary Capabilities program. Rudder noted that the initiatives can help the Marine Corps conduct operations amid pilot shortages. 

USMC began the K-Max effort in 2011 before transferring the helicopters to the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona for further experimentation in 2016. Kaman and Lockheed Martin previously teamed up to jointly develop a flight control system that can autonomously power a K-Max helicopter.

The Department of Homeland Security in partnership with FBI identified the malware potentially used by the North Korean government to hack into federal and industry targets. The agencies released the Malware Analysis Report on Wednesday providing information on the malware variant, called HOPLIGHT, which is linked to the Pyongyang-tied cyber attack HIDDEN COBRA.

“DHS and FBI are distributing this MAR to enable network defense and reduce exposure to North Korean government malicious cyber activity,” the report states.

The document includes malware descriptions, response actions and mitigation techniques to help users and systems administrators deter any malicious activities involving HOPLIGHT. DHS and FBI found nine malicious files involving the malware, seven of which were used to mask traffic between the malware and remote operators.

David Bernhardt, acting secretary of the Department of the Interior, has been confirmed by Congress to serve in the role on a permanent basis, The Hill reported Thursday. Congress voted 56-41 confirming Berhardt, who will manage energy production efforts offshore and in publicly owned U.S. land that spans around 500 million acres. 

Previously, Bernhardt served as solicitor for the Interior Department and held various roles at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, which represents a range of clients such as Sempra Energy, Halliburton Energy Services and the Westlands Water District. 

President Trump announced his intent to nominate Bernhardt as Interior secretary in February. 

The Small Business Administration’s inspector general issued the evaluation report highlighting that SBA needs to improve how it handles risk management, security, data mobility and information technology investments as well the adoption of federal standards to efficiently move data to the cloud and reduce disruption during migration, according to the IG report published Tuesday.

The federal watchdog analyzed SBA’s cloud systems inventory and migration efforts and oversight from fiscal year 2017 to 2018. The IG recommends that the agency improve its cloud inventory and monitoring controls, data ownership portability and interoperability and documentation of cloud cost savings and service level requirements to support and secure its migration efforts. 

SBA Inspector General Hannibal Ware said the agency agreed with all recommendations. Top SBA officials have yet to submit a report on the implementation of final actions to improve cloud migration.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released new direct hiring authorities to allow federal hiring managers to skip some steps in the process to employ new information technology managers, general engineers and general physical scientists. 

“The expanded direct-hire authority will allow NIST to simplify and expedite hiring for managers in mission critical occupations,” according to a notice issued Thursday. NIST marked top-level scientific and engineering positions in Pay Band III through V as “critical shortage.”

Under the new authority, hiring managers could bypass certain laws governing eligibility preferences, including section 3309 through section 3318. Such laws are used to identify prospective candidates who should receive preference in hiring decisions, such as veterans and former federal employees.