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Adm. Karl Schultz Assumes Coast Guard Leadership
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Adm. Karl Schultz Assumes Coast Guard Leadership


Adm. Karl Schultz Assumes Coast Guard Leadership
Karl Schultz

Adm. Karl Schultz officially succeeded Adm. Paul Zukunft as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard during a ceremony that took place Friday at USCG’s headquarters in Washington, DoD News reported Friday.

President Donald Trump attended the change-of-command ceremony and thanked Zukunft for his military service over the past 45 years.

Schultz, former USCG Atlantic area commander, was nominated to the position in March.

He has collaborated with the DoD and the Department of Homeland Security during his more than 35-year career at the Coast Guard.

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NASA to Launch 5th Solar Terrestrial Probe Mission in 2024; Dennis Andrucyk Comments
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NASA to Launch 5th Solar Terrestrial Probe Mission in 2024; Dennis Andrucyk Comments


NASA to Launch 5th Solar Terrestrial Probe Mission in 2024; Dennis Andrucyk CommentsNASA will launch a spacecraft towards the Sun in 2024 to collect and analyze solar wind particles that pass through the outer boundary of the solar system.

The space agency said Saturday the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe mission will also guide researchers in understanding further how cosmic rays are generated in the heliosphere.

The IMAP satellite will carry 10 science instruments from international and local research entities.

Dennis Andrucyk, deputy associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate of NASA, stated that IMAP will provide more knowledge on how the heliosphere or “cosmic filter” works.

“The implications of this research could reach well beyond the consideration of Earthly impacts as we look to send humans into deep space,” he said.

IMAP will be the fifth mission under NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes program.

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Report: US Military Eyes THAAD Missile Defense System Deployment in Germany
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Report: US Military Eyes THAAD Missile Defense System Deployment in Germany


Report: US Military Eyes THAAD Missile Defense System Deployment in GermanyThe U.S. military has conducted preliminary talks about the potential deployment of a missile defense system in Germany to strengthen defenses in Europe amid threats posed by Iran’s ballistic missile development efforts, Reuters reported Friday.

Riki Ellison, head of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said the U.S. European Command has been proposing for years the plan to field the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in Europe but the U.S. government’s decision to exit the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran has given weight to the matter.

“There are currently no plans to station THAAD systems in Germany,” said Eric Pahon, a spokesman for the Defense Department.

“We do not discuss potential future military planning, as we would not want to signal our intent to potential adversaries,” Pahon added.

The report said the potential deployment of THAAD in Germany may be included in DoD’s missile defense review that is expected to be issued early this month.

Lockheed Martin-built THAAD has a Raytheon-made radar, AN/TPY-2, and works to counter short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

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DISA Launches Electronic App for Federal Background Checks; Raju Shah Comments
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DISA Launches Electronic App for Federal Background Checks; Raju Shah Comments


DISA Launches Electronic App for Federal Background Checks; Raju Shah CommentsThe Defense Information Systems Agency has introduced an electronic application designed to help federal security clearance applicants submit applications for background investigations.

DISA said Friday the National Background Investigation Services’ program office implemented eApp, which is meant to replace the current Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing system.

Raju Shah, program manager of NBIS, said the organization aims to gather feedback from an upcoming usability study of  1,000 eApp users at the U.S. Army in an effort to refine the tool.

Shah added that NBIS plans to commence the app’s public rollout by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year.

The tool is designed to help operators collect and assess investigation data from users, as well as help re-applicants access information from their previous applications.

Congress directed DISA in 2016 to lead the Defense Contract Management Agency, Office of Personnel Management and other Defense Department components in the development, test, operation, maintenance and security of federal background checks.

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Rear Adm. Douglas Fears Named Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser
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Rear Adm. Douglas Fears Named Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser


Rear Adm. Douglas Fears Named Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser
Douglas Fears

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Douglas Fears, formerly senior director for resilience policy at the National Security Council, has been named homeland security and counterterrorism adviser and deputy assistant to President Donald Trump.

“Fears brings more than three decades of experience across a range of vital homeland security areas including counterterrorism, cybersecurity and disaster response to the NSC,” National Security Adviser John Bolton said in a statement published Friday.

Bolton added that Fears will also serve as his point person on matters related to the NSC’s cybersecurity directorate and help coordinate disaster response interagency efforts.

Fears previously served as special assistant to the president and chief of staff to the head of the Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command.

He will succeed Tom Bossert, who resigned as homeland security adviser in April.

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James Mattis: North Korea Must Adopt Denuclearization Measures for Sanction Relief
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James Mattis: North Korea Must Adopt Denuclearization Measures for Sanction Relief


James Mattis: North Korea Must Adopt Denuclearization Measures for Sanction Relief
James Mattis

Defense Secretary James Mattis has said at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue summit that North Korea needs to implement and demonstrate denuclearization efforts for the country to be relieved from UN sanctions, CNN reported Sunday.

Mattis, a 2018 Wash100 awardee, noted that cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the U.S. is essential in convincing Pyongyang to halt its nuclear plans.

“When we consider the unity of purpose among our three democracies… we see that our security cooperation is needed more than ever, providing a stabilizing effect in support of our interests for peace, deterrence and stability,” he added.

President Donald Trump recently confirmed that he would with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on June 12 and both leaders are expected to tackle the matter at their meeting.

Regional allies of the U.S. expressed their concerns over Trump potentially arranging a deal with Kim that would see North Korea surrender its long-range missiles for sanctions relief but keep its short-range weapons, according to the report.

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DHS S&T Prioritizes 5 Research Areas Supporting New Cybersecurity Strategy
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DHS S&T Prioritizes 5 Research Areas Supporting New Cybersecurity Strategy


DHS S&T Prioritizes 5 Research Areas Supporting New Cybersecurity StrategyThe Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate is initiating research efforts to support a new cybersecurity strategy.

These efforts aim to bolster the department’s cyber detection and defense capacities, and encompass the areas of risk identification, vulnerability reduction, threat reduction, consequence mitigation and enabling of cybersecurity outcomes, DHS said Thursday.

In support of the risk identification research area, S&T’s Application of Network Measurement Science seeks to construct technologies that would help identify, classify, report, predict, attribute and address events disruptive to the internet.

Under the vulnerability reduction area, the directorate is pursuing the Critical Infrastructure Design and Adaptive Resilient Systems project that aims to develop analytical tools and framework for facilitating cross-sector cybersecurity risk assessments.

For the area focusing on threat reduction, S&T has initiated the Anonymous Networks and Currencies and Cyber Forensics projects that aim to build platforms to support law enforcement entities in performing cyber and network investigations.

Supporting consequence mitigation, S&T’s Cyber Physical System Security effort works to include security considerations into the structure of cyber physical systems, for instance IoT.

Lastly, the Transition to Practice Program seeks to disseminate government-funded cybersecurity applications across the market, supporting the goal to enable cybersecurity outcomes.

These projects are only a few among the department’s many cybersecurity efforts.

The full list of projects can be found here.

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Senators Urge White House to Preserve Cyber Coordinator Function
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Senators Urge White House to Preserve Cyber Coordinator Function


Senators Urge White House to Preserve Cyber Coordinator FunctionSen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and 18 other senators have urged John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, to retain the cybersecurity coordinator position at the White House.

The lawmakers told Bolton in a letter published Wednesday they believe eliminating the role would prevent the government from presenting a unified effort against foreign threat actors who target cyber-based U.S. infrastructure.

The letter came after Bolton endorsed the removal of the post.

“Our country’s cybersecurity should be a top priority; therefore, it is critically important that the U.S. government present a unified front in defending against cyberattacks,” the senators wrote.

Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., introduced a bill that would establish a national office for cyber space and make the cybersecurity coordinator function permanent at the White House.

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DOE Details Gaps in Capability to Mitigate Effects of Cyber Attacks on US Electric Grid
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DOE Details Gaps in Capability to Mitigate Effects of Cyber Attacks on US Electric Grid


DOE Details Gaps in Capability to Mitigate Effects of Cyber Attacks on US Electric GridThe Energy Department has released a report that assesses the risk of cyber threats to the U.S. power grid.

DOE said Wednesday the report “Assessment of Electricity Disruption Incident Response Capabilities” was prepared in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to build up the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and federal networks.

The report details and classifies gaps in capabilities and assets in seven categories and those include cyber-related situational awareness and incident impact analysis; integration of cybersecurity into state energy assurance planning; electric cyber workforce; data sharing between public and private sectors; and supply chain and trusted partners.

DOE noted that the U.S. is well-prepared to handle disruptions to electricity and its efforts to protect the electric grid from cyber threats fall within planning; incident response; exercises and training; and information sharing.

The analysis also cited factors that may affect the power industry’s capability to respond to power outages caused by cyber incidents, including no-notice events that preclude the electricity subsector from initiating pre-emptive measures and unpredictable system responses.

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John Sherman on Microsoft Azure’s Addition to Intell Community’s IT Modernization Effort
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John Sherman on Microsoft Azure’s Addition to Intell Community’s IT Modernization Effort


John Sherman on Microsoft Azure’s Addition to Intell Community’s IT Modernization Effort
John Sherman

John Sherman, chief information officer of the Intelligence Community, has said the inclusion of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform in the IC Information Technology Enterprise reflects his office’s efforts to search for alternative technologies in support of the community’s requirements, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

ICITE is a program that seeks to facilitate IT consolidation and modernization across IC.

“One of the things I’ve got clear guidance on is we will always be looking for new technologies, new industry capabilities on cloud computing,” Sherman said in an interview on the station’s Ask the CIO program.

“One of the priorities we have in the IC is to move to artificial intelligence and machine learning, and this cloud computing foundation is absolutely critical in getting us there,” he added.

Sherman said he believes the community’s adoption of Microsoft Azure in addition to the National Security Agency’s GovCloud and Amazon Web Services’ cloud platform would help IC speed up the decision-making process in support of counterterrorism efforts and other operations.

Microsoft and IC signed a six-year agreement in May to expand the use of the company’s cloud platform and other technology offerings by 17 agencies within the community.

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