The Energy Department‘s office of inspector general has recommended strategies to secure DOE information systems and data after identifying vulnerabilities during to a fiscal 2018 evaluation.

OIG said in a report published Oct. 19 it found lapses in vulnerability and configuration management, access controls, web application integrity, security control testing, privacy awareness training and cybersecurity approaches at certain DOE sites.

The department oversees many laboratories and plants that rely on IT networks and systems to address national security, research, development and environmental management efforts.

According to the report, DOE faces various malicious threats each year that seek to steal data or hack into information systems that support its missions.

The inspector general recommended that the department identify, prioritize and track the developments of efforts aiming to address identified cybersecurity risks.

OIG conducted the audit to determine the effectiveness of the department-wide unclassified cybersecurity program, as mandated by the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014.

The Energy Department has introduced a program to explore technologies and strategies to address the country’s water security, cost and safety challenges.

DOE said Thursday it partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency on the Water Security Grand Challenge that will include competitions and funding opportunities for early-stage research and development efforts aimed at increasing access to clean water by 2030.

The program’s goals include developing desalination technologies; transforming wastewater from the energy sector and municipal entities into a resource; achieving near-zero water impact from thermoelectric power plants; and establishing small modular energy-water systems for various mission such as national security and disaster response.

DOE added it intends to collaborate with other government entities and companies to meet the objectives.

The department issued a request for information earlier this year to gather public input on how to address water-related problems through competitions.

Roberto Guerrero, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for operational energy, has said the service should build up readiness and combat capability against potential adversaries through comprehensive collection and analysis of data related to operational energy use.

“By collecting flight data across all aircraft and missions, measuring fuel use and other operational parameters, and analyzing how we equip our ranges and conduct training, we can better understand operational and logistical challenges,” he wrote in a Defense News commentary published Thursday.

He noted how a data algorithm-based tool, Jigsaw, has helped the Air Force manage aerial refueling operations.

Guerrero called on all major commands to advance collaboration to improve the collection and analysis of flight data as the service aims to keep its competitive edge against enemies.

“Better operational data collection means better operational analysis — and better operational analysis means increased readiness and greater lethality,” he added.
 

The Defense Department’s digital service team has unveiled a new workspace in Augusta, Ga., to allow service personnel and civilians to work together on cyber capabilities.

DoD said Thursday the Tatooine workspace marks the expansion of Defense Digital Service’s partnership with Army Cyber Command on a pilot program that seeks to support and cultivate technical talent within ARCYBER through collaboration with DDS’ tech professionals with industry experience.

“Tatooine will be a beacon for technical talent across the military – a place to write code and solve problems of impact,” said Chris Lynch, DDS director.

Through the new workspace, DDS experts and soldiers will take part in pilot programs that aim to detect cyber threat actors on DoD networks, redesign training for cyber military personnel and develop systems designed to detect hostile drones.

Tatooine at Georgia Cyber Center will provide pilot teams a space to collaborate and support other technical programs such as the Civilian Hiring as a Service Pilot and the Hack the Army bug bounty initiative.
 

The Defense Innovation Board has published set of guidelines that will help the Defense Department and other program executive offices determine if agile development processes are being followed, GovernmentCIO Media reported Friday.

The document called Detecting Agile BS provides standards for identifying real or false claims of project teams in complying to agile development practices.

DIB found that the lack of communication between the software development team and the users of the system code, the priority to meet requirements first before developing an actual effective product and contractors acting autonomously are signs of a fraud agile project.

Other indicators of false agile development progress are the absence of end users throughout the development phase and the use of manual instead of automated processes in the development, security and operations culture.

The guide also noted that the use of tools such as repository hosting sites and modification tracking applications indicate that project teams are legitimately executing an agile development process.

Additionally, Detecting Agile BS provides the DoD with a set of questions it could ask customers and users and teams for programming, program management and leadership regarding their software development efforts.