Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer, has said government agencies have reached a critical point in efforts to transform processes through innovation, Federal Times reported Tuesday.

“There is always a fear of what’s going to happen if we get things wrong,” Kent told audience at a Professional Services Council-hosted event Tuesday.

“It’s about that vision, it’s about that boldness to change the status quo.”

The Office of Management and Budget issued $45M in grant awards to the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Energy and Agriculture in June through the Technology Modernization Fund.

White House officials have urged other agencies to pursue remaining grants on the initial $100M TMF program, the report noted.

Nextgov reported Tuesday the White House aims to collect input from government, academic and industry professionals on workforce transformation strategies through an executive symposium the administration will host on Tuesday.

William Eggers, executive director of the Deloitte‘s Center for Government Insights, said the government seeks to update the skill set of approximately 300K federal employees over the next three years.

 

The U.S. Army has demonstrated the capabilities of the digital cockpits of two prototype UH-60V Black Hawk helicopters during a recent limited user test.

The LUT involved immersing the two aircraft in various flight simulations to leverage their survivability equipment and trigger pilot actions, the service said Monday.

Derek Muller, UH-60V LUT test officer with USAOTC, noted that the threat simulation used in the evaluation demonstrated a combat-like environment and provided “quality” training for the aircrews.

After the LUT, an aviation test team from the Army Operational Test Command interviewed the UH-60V pilots regarding their experience interacting with the digital platform during missions.

Muller added that data collected during the test will be used to support an Army Evaluation Center study, as well as notify the Utility Helicopter Program Office when to initiate the limited production for the digital cockpit.

Initial operational test and evaluation for the UH-60V is expected to occur in late 2019.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended the Defense Department and U.S. Navy issue an updated or new set of guidelines for developing plans to sustain legacy weapon systems.

GAO said in a report published Monday that the Navy inconsistently documented its sustainment strategies for C-2A, E2C, EA-18G and F/A-18A-D aircraft since 2012.

Meanwhile, the DoD lacks clear guidance on whether developing a sustainment strategy is required and needs to be modified every five years for weapons systems that are already being operated and supported.

The GAO noted that clarifying requirements for documenting sustainment plans for aging systems will allow agencies to check the availability and operating and support costs of aircraft and any associated risks.

For the study, the agency assessed the aircraft availability goals and O&S cost trends of the Navy and U.S. Air Force for a selected pool of fixed-wing planes between 2011 and 2016.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., has introduced a bill aiming to protect U.S. citizens from the damages of an information breach.

The congressman worked with the Financial Services Committee to develop the Consumer Information Notification Requirement Act that would affirm financial institutions’ compliance with data security standards, Luetkemeyer said Friday in a release.

The bill would modify the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to impose standards on data security at financial institutions, and require these institutions to immediately notify consumers in the event of breaches.

The introduction of the new bill comes a year after the reveal of the Equifax breach that exposed the data of 145.5 million people,

Luetkemeyer chairs the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has said creating a new Space Command under the Pentagon will help address concerns about President Trump’s idea to establish a Space Force, Space News reported Monday.

Work noted during a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that reorganizing the Pentagon to form a Space Command, Space Operations Force and Space Development Agency will not be a “disruptive” step towards creating the proposed sixth service branch.

He added that the Pentagon has not allocated an initial budget for the Space Force as it will have to compete with other factions for funds.

Space funds are also typically shared by multiple departments.

“There are as many congressional proponents for spending more money on cyber as there are in space,” the former defense official said.

However, Work explained that DoD officials have paid attention to space even during the Obama administration, even though the government that time refused to open discussions about space warfare.

He also noted that the Obama administration did not receive as many resources for space as it requested in the defense budget.

Andrea Thompson, undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department, has said new policies on defense exports will likely increase U.S. weapons sales in 2019, Defense News reported Tuesday.

Thompson told reporters on Sept. 7 that the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, issued in April, will be one of the factors directly affecting future weapons sales.

The Trump administration passed the CAT Policy to boost America’s arms exports and domestic industry.

Other policies such as dropping additional charges on products and reducing the transportation fee for foreign military sales clients could also increase U.S. weapons sales in 2019.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has divulged that U.S. weapons FMS rose from $41.9B in 2017 to $46.9B in the first half of 2018.

Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has told the Government Accountability Office that the company’s failure to identify and patch a critical software vulnerability, and correctly configure a crucial security system led, in part, to the massive 2017 data breach that compromised the personal information of millions of Equifax customers.

Equifax officials acknowledged that it was not able to identify the presence of the Apache Struts vulnerability on one of its client-facing portals in time, which gave cyber attackers an opportunity to penetrate the company’s systems, the GAO said in a recently-published audit report.

Company officials also admitted failing to update the digital certificate of a security system which, if properly configured, would have alerted Equifax information technology officers about unusual network traffic emanating from compromised servers, the GAO reported.

In October last year, Equifax determined that 145.5 million of its customers were affected by the breach, but this March identified another 2.4 million affected customers from the U.S., the GAO said.

Equifax later learned that some of the 2.4 million were already included in the initial count, but as of August, the company has yet to issue a revised total, the GAO noted.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced plans to create a research facility to explore integrated approaches for the delivery of caregiving services to former military service members.

VA said Friday the Elizabeth Dole Center of Excellence for Veteran and Caregiver Research will support peer-reviewed studies on training, evaluation and adoption of best practices in aid of veterans’ caregivers across the department, federal agencies, industry and nonprofit organizations.

The center is named for the former senator who has demonstrated a dedication to the welfare of the country’s military and veteran caregivers and has supported RAND Corp. research into the challenges they face.

VA’s Office of Health Services Research and Development will manage the CoE where a multidisciplinary research team, led by Luci Leykum from the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.

The CoE’s partner institutions include the Miami VA Healthcare System, VA Salt Lake City Health Care System and the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.

Raanan Horowitz, CEO of Elbit Systems of America, has said he believes the U.S. needs to strike a balance between the need to ensure national security and advance foreign investment and that the country’s industrial base policy could help support such a balance.

“The policy must focus on promoting investments and exchange of technology with key trusted allies and partners, while prioritizing the way we approach security concerns associated with foreign investments,” Horowitz wrote in a National Defense article published Monday.

He said the U.S. government should draft investment policies with allies and competitors in mind and consider two elements when reforming the evaluation of foreign investments for national security risks.

“First, U.S. government oversight and visibility into investments should be enhanced, but enacted in coordination with more nuanced risk and tailored mitigation policies,” Horowitz wrote.

“Second, investment oversight should clearly and predictably distinguish between countries, allowing the government to leverage the contributions and interests of trusted allies while applying heavier scrutiny to troubling investments from adversaries.”

Horowitz added that opening up international investments to the same level of scrutiny applied to adversaries would hamper the development of warfighting capabilities, undermine the U.S. industrial base and innovation and reduce access to technologies developed by trusted allies and partners.
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