The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration will administer a workshop in November that will focus on the idea of establishing transparency for software parts, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

The NTIA Software Component Transparency meeting on Nov. 6 in New York will be the continuation of the first workshop of its kind, which kicked off on July 19.

The effort comes as the government grows suspicious of software and hardware programs developed overseas that foreign countries may use to spy on the U.S.

“It’s very difficult when you start going to the lower tiers in the supply chain and you have embedded components and embedded software because there isn’t a bill of materials for the products you buy,” said Donald Davidson, deputy director of cybersecurity risk management at the Office of the Defense Department Chief Information Officer.

He explained during an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association-hosted event that there is a need for the government to consider requiring a bill of materials for procured software systems and analyze how that effort would affect operations and costs.

NTIA has yet to define a date for a potential third software transparency workshop.

The U.S. Army supports the idea of developing a standard for informing the DoD about threats to the supply chain.

Maj. Johanna Wynne, intelligence planner at Army Futures Command, noted that the U.S. lacks a common set of practices to communicate the data that it needs.

“The risk assessments that we do receive are often late; they do not provide adequate visualization of trends or patterns and situational awareness. Nor do they support appropriate DoD responses,” Wynne added.

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate is initiating new research to answer key questions before it embarks on a new cybersecurity strategy.

To that end, the department’s S&T Cyber Risk Economics program, or CYRIE, aims to fund applied research and development, interdisciplinary initiatives and knowledge technologies and capabilities, the DHS said Tuesday.

CYRIE seeks to answer how and why cybersecurity investments are made; how these investments affect risk and harm; the relationship between cybersecurity and traditional business risk; and necessary incentives needed to support effective cyber risk management.

In line with this, the S&T developed the new Cyber Risk Economics Capability Gaps Research Strategy, which is grouped in six themes and subdivided into 12 focus areas and seeks to address risk challenges such as risk quantification; government, law and insurance roles; third party risk; organizational behavior and incentives; data gathering and distribution; and threat dynamics.

“The strategy’s objective is to narrow the gap between research and practice by apprising the research community of real-world cyber risk economic challenges, and ultimately, to inform evidence-based policy and actions by industry and government,” said CYRIE program manager Erin Kenneally.

“CYRIE’s goal is to improve value-based decision making by those who own, operate, protect and regulate the nation’s vital data assets and critical infrastructure,” Kenneally added.

 

The Department of Energy is investing $53M to fund 53 early-stage solar technology projects with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office.

Selected participants will work within the areas of photovoltaics and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP), aiming to develop technologies that support a growing workforce for renewable energy, the DOE said Tuesday.

Photovoltaics directly transform sunlight into electric power, while the CSP approach gathers sunlight-based heat that produces electricity like standard power plants.

“Developing new skills through workforce training is critical to expanding job opportunities in the renewable sector, which is why we are following through on our program to reach out to military veterans with new projects that will target this committed workforce,” said Rick Perry, the secretary of energy.

The projects will be grouped into three research areas: photovoltaics R&D; concentrating solar power R&D; and improving and expanding the solar industry through workforce initiatives.

The U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities Office is developing aerial electronic warfare capabilities for American forces deployed in Europe, C4ISRNET reported Wednesday.

Pete Manternach, who heads the RCO’s EW efforts, told C4ISRNET via a letter that the airborne electronic warfare package, which will work with manned or unmanned aircraft, is designed to extend the range at which electronic signals can be detected.

The project is one of multiple solutions under development as part of phase two of the RCO’s overall endeavor to equip U.S. units in Europe with requisite electronic warfare tools. 

Phase two is slated for deployment by the second quarter of fiscal year 2019.

Manternach noted, however, that the aerial electronic warfare package will not yet be fielded at that time.

Army Futures Command has established a new organization that will help companies navigate their way through the defense acquisition process, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday.

The command’s Army Applications Laboratory will coordinate with traditional defense contractors to assist startups in developing military products that will be able to make it into programs of record.

Adam Jay Harrison, innovation officer of Army Futures Command and head of the new lab, noted that the U.S. Army aims to maximize program pathways to take advantage of new technologies being developed.

He found that young companies are usually uninterested in working with the Defense Department because of the demands of dealing with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and other processes that can delay transactions.

The Army Applications Lab will launch various programs that focus on product procurement businesses, as well as establish a fund for innovation programs.

Air Force Materiel Command has helped the government save approximately $1.3B by countering fraudulent activities in U.S. Air Force procurement efforts.

AFMC personnel investigate the majority of all fraud cases related to electronics, hardware, software and labor services for the military branch, Air Force said Tuesday.

Six command attorneys have trained at least 15K government workers over the past decade on how to detect contracting fraud.

The Hanscom AF Base in Massachusetts will host on Oct. 30 a Northeast Fraud Working Group meeting that seeks to help the installation’s staff members spot illegal or dishonest behavior during the weapons acquisition process.

Vice President Mike Pence has said the establishment of a “space force” as the sixth military branch seeks to address the “lack of centralized leadership and accountability” over programs that aim to promote national security in space.

Pence said Tuesday at the National Space Council’s fourth meeting at the National Defense University that the council would vote on six recommendations for the proposed roadmap to form the new service, which he says would help sort out the “fragmented responsibilities” over national security space initiatives.

He mentioned plans for the creation of a unified combatant command and a space development agency and a joint review between the National Space Council and National Security Council to assess space authorities that would provide warfighters the leeway to counter space-based threats.

The Trump administration will work with Congress in the next few months to include in the next National Defense Authorization Act provisions to establish the space-focused service by 2020, Pence noted.

Pence also cited the government’s partnerships with the private sector to build up the country’s launch systems and expedite the delivery of new space capabilities through the Launch Service Agreements.
 

Two House Appropriations Committee members have asked the Defense Department’s office of inspector general to investigate the requirements and solicitation process for the potential 10-year, $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

Reps. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) wrote a letter Monday to Glenn Fine, acting inspector general at DoD, to raise concern over the contract’s Defense Information Systems Agency impact level 6 requirement that a cloud service provider should meet.

The lawmakers said they think that requirement is one of the limiting or “gating” provisions of the contract that “seem to be tailored to one specific contractor.”

Cole and Womack also called on the inspector general to investigate why the Pentagon continues to pursue a contract structure that has drawn criticism from industry and Congress.

The Pentagon released its request for proposals in July for the JEDI program with plans to issue a single-sourced contract.

The report said DoD intends to award the cloud contract in early 2019.
 

The Federal Acquisition Service and Internal Revenue Service are looking into modernizing their technical assets to modify and streamline their contracting processes, Federal News Network reported Monday.

General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy noted at the 2018 ImagineNation ELC conference that she aims for FAS to rethink procurement operations as it simplifies its schedules program.

She added that technologies such as robotics process automation, machine learning and business process re-engineering will help contracting officers focus on procuring systems according to specific data and business needs.

FAS Commissioner Alan Thomas also disclosed at the conference that the service will leverage GSA’s CIO Application Maintenance, Enhancements, and Operations recompete effort to modernize contracting systems.

“Within six months, we will have the requirements for our new contracting writing system out to industry, and by the back half of 2019, we expect to begin delivering new capabilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, IRS has procured a robotics process automation system to review the financial and business transactions of contractors.

Tim Shaughnessy, a senior program analyst at the IRS, explained that the bot will be in charge of monitoring a vendor’s status on the System for Award Management or SAM.gov website and other platforms, as well as collect proposals from interested vendors.

IRS has also started testing a pilot program under Parts 12 and 13 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to help agencies speed up the review process for new systems procured through contracts worth less than $7M.