Defense Secretary James Mattis has issued a memo that calls for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to achieve a minimum mission capability rate of 80 percent for four types of fighter aircraft by the end of fiscal 2019, Defense News reported Tuesday.

Mattis asked the service branches to reduce the operating and maintenance costs of F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-18 fighter jets starting in fiscal 2019, according to the memo obtained by the publication.

He wrote that military services should “also set and pursue aggressive targets for other enduring fixed- and rotary-wing aviation assets.”

The defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness should come up with reporting procedures and definitions to evaluate mission capability and cost beginning this month.

Mattis asked the P&R undersecretary to work with service branches and the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment to develop implementation frameworks for the four aircraft by Oct. 15.

Those frameworks should state how to incorporate best practices in supply chains, depots and units, according to the document.
 

Chris Inglis, former deputy National Security Agency director, has turned up to be the top candidate to lead NSA should Defense Secretary James Mattis decide to split the agency from U.S. Cyber Command, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Some sources told the publication the Pentagon chief was close to deciding on a plan to separate the dual-hat arrangement but decided to reconsider after Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of NSA and Cybercom, expressed concerns to Mattis about Cybercom’s capacity to operate on its own should the split push through.

“No decision has been made,” said Audricia Harris, a spokeswoman for DoD.

“When a decision is made, it will be reflective of the department’s commitment to preempt, defeat and deter malicious cyber activity.”

Inglis spent nearly three decades at NSA, where he served as deputy director between 2006 and 2014 and signals intelligence deputy chief for analysis and production.

He is a retired Air National Guard brigadier general and a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland.

He also served in the U.S. Air Force for nine years, according to the report.
 

John Zangardi, chief information officer of the Department of Homeland Security, has said there is a need for the department to implement a more flexible hiring process as it administers various modernization initiatives, FedScoop reported Friday.

He explained during the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council’s latest Federal Insights Exchange Session that he is competing with private firms in terms of salary, quality of life and job satisfaction when recruiting cyber and information technology experts.

Zangardi added that he plans to increase cyber pay compensations in 2019 to boost the skills of IT employees across the DHS and to sustain its workforce.

“That will help me compete a little bit better within the broader cyber community to hold onto people,” he said.

However, the DHS official noted a backlog of 800,000 security clearance applications and other factors hindering the department from hiring new talent despite the increased compensation.

DHS Chief Human Capital Officer Angela Bailey has started coordinating with Zangardi’s office to develop ways to streamline its hiring process, which will include employing interns and launching a system for cyber professionals.

Hill Air Force Base is employing new handheld tablets for use with maintenance activities on F-35A aircraft.

The tablets integrate with Portable Maintenance Aid laptops that connect with the aircraft’s Autonomic Logistics Information System, a platform that monitors and records the F-35’s status information, the U.S. Air Force said Friday.

The new handheld devices address mobility and connectivity gaps found in the laptops that are heavy and not equipped to access wireless internet.

Maintainers now use the tablets to manage work orders and information on a faster pace.

“If we have an issue with a jet and need to ground abort, a pilot will be able to sign out a spare right on the line and step to that jet,” said 1st Lt. Eric Dolan, aerospace ground equipment flight commander of the 388th Maintenance Squadron.

“We can do that right on the flight line without having to call the flight ops desk for a backup,” he added.

Dolan’s maintenance group will have almost 200 of these tablets to support the base’s future assignment of three F-35A squadrons, covering 78 aircraft in total.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has found that the U.S. recorded $55.66B in fiscal 2018 foreign military sales, reflecting a 33 percent rise from total FMS sales posted in fiscal 2017.

DSCA said Tuesday the trend can be attributed to policy changes the White House has initiated such as the administration’s move to update the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy in April.

“These policy changes advance U.S. national security and foreign policy because they make FMS more attractive in a very competitive market,” said Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, DSCA director and a Wash100 recipient.

The agency said the total figure includes $47.71B in transactions funded by partner countries; $4.42B in agreements funded by Defense Department agencies; and $3.52B in deals supported by the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing Program.

Some of the policy reforms that DSCA introduced include the FMS transportation reduction and the agency’s move to lower FMS-related administrative surcharge to 3.2 percent from 3.5 percent.
 

President Trump intends to appoint Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, as acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Replacing former OPM director Jeff Pon, she will hold the role concurrently with her position at the OMB, the White House said Friday.

Weichert has 25 years of professional experience, having previously filled executive roles at various consultancy and finance firms including Andersen Consulting, Bank of America, EY and First Data. In addition, she holds 14 U.S. patents and founded the e-commerce firm Achex, now a part of First Data.

 

Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, chief information officer of the U.S. Army, has said he will prioritize the procurement of cloud products and services in fiscal year 2019, C4ISRNET reported Wednesday.

Crawford disclosed in an interview that he plans to migrate over 2,000 of the service’s applications to the cloud using a system, which will possibly align with the Defense Department’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure initiative.

He added that having the ability to aggregate data and provide access to data anywhere on the battlefield can increase the mobility of soldiers.

Army officials seek a cloud system that can organize data repositories, common software and hardware platforms and enterprise systems for tactical public key infrastructure, among other things.

Apart from cloud migration operations, Crawford also said he intends to focus on modernizing identity management and artificial intelligence systems in 2019.

Sustained efforts to develop and implement initiatives to address weapon system cybersecurity challenges are needed to update the Defense Department’s understanding of how to build more secure military tools, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

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A GAO report posted Tuesday said military capabilities are vulnerable to cyberattacks, with vulnerability testers able to hack into systems and infiltrate networks without being detected during an operational assessment. The agency is studying the state of the Pentagon’s arsenal to identify cyber weaknesses in current weapon systems, as well as assessing the DoD’s initiatives to obtain cybersecurity readiness. 

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Weapon system cybersecurity can be compromised by simple issues such as poor password management or lack of encryption, the agency reported. The GAO also said that cybersecurity modernization is hampered by the government’s difficulty recruiting enough cyber professionals.

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The DoD plans on investing around $1.66T to overhaul its armory system.

Jeanette Manfra, a cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, told Federal News Network in an interview published Tuesday that DHS prioritizes efforts to build up its cyber workforce through education.

Manfra, assistant secretary for the national protection and programs directorate at DHS’ office of cybersecurity and communications, said her office will assess this month whether personnel need to undergo the Federal Virtual Training Environment and other courses.

She noted that she wants to ensure that chief information officers have access to cyber tools and cited the need for collaboration with the private sector.

“And so the government needs to lean further forward in how we work with private companies, how we work with the public, how we work with our own systems and then we’re asking everybody, from the individual consumer all the way up to CEOs, to make cybersecurity a priority in everything that they do,” she added.