Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen recently highlighted the risks cyberattacks pose to the U.S. and described some of the initiatives the Department of Homeland Security has launched to address them.

Secretary Nielsen said during a Sept. 5 speech at George Washington University that there is “a worldwide outbreak of cyberattacks and cyber vulnerabilities,” describing cyberspace as “the most active battlefield” whose coverage “extends into every single American home.”

Nielsen, a 2018 Wash100 awardee, said the DHS is monitoring both cyber criminals as well as adversarial states, most notably Russia and North Korea, whose deployment of malware last year resulted in “untold billions in damage.”

The DHS secretary went on to discuss some of the initiatives her agency has launched in response to these threats, including a cyber strategy focused on systemic risk and resilience, efforts to secure supply chains, and inter-agency partnerships to hold cyber attackers responsible.

“We will respond. And we will respond decisively,” Nielsen declared.

Secretary Nielsen also discussed the need for lawmakers to convert the National Protection and Programs Directorate, the DHS’ cybersecurity division, into an independent agency.

“I ask Congress to pass legislation immediately, and absolutely before the year ends,” Nielsen said.

Eric Chewning, deputy assistant secretary for industrial policy at the Defense Department, has said that DoD must collaborate with U.S. allies to establish a “safe space” for cooperation across the worldwide industrial base for military technology platforms and services, Defense News reported Thursday.

“As China articulates a civil-military fusion doctrine where they are intentionally blurring the lines between their developments on the military side, we need to work with our allies to create a safe space where we can work collaboratively to do that,” Chewning told audience at a Defense News-hosted conference held Wednesday.

The report noted DoD’s acquisition and sustainment organization has bilateral ties with 35 countries on industrial partnerships.

Chewning urged the department to expand the reach of national technological and industrial pilot programs with partner nations by including Australia and the U.K., and opening up cooperative opportunities for countries outside of the core group such as Israel.

He made the remarks as the Pentagon works to complete a long-awaited report on the status of the country’s defense supply chain.

Raanan Horowitz, CEO of Elbit Systems’ U.S. arm, told Defense News the use of modern technology such as blockchain can help protect supply chain operations.

The House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that would assign chief data officers to the Department of Homeland Security, as a way of promoting digital transparency.

Rep. John Carter’s, R-Texas, Department of Homeland Security Chief Data Officer Authorization Act would appoint a chief data officer for each of the department’s 22 components, the congressman’s office said Wednesday.

The officers would gather and publicly report on DHS statistics, analytics and policies.

“This bipartisan legislation will help give the public an unbiased look into how their government is working for them, and ensure that DHS stays up to par with transparency expectations,” said Carter.

Navy Vice Adm. William Merz, deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems (N9), has said the service will carry out a force structure assessment in 2019, Defense News reported Wednesday.

Merz said Wednesday at the Defense News Conference the FSA will call for regional threat commanders to gauge the perception of threat and subject that evaluation to war games for potential analysis by independent study teams.

He noted the Navy will also conduct an interim evaluation “a little but quicker — a review of any indications of changes.”

The report said the planned FSA is expected to offer details on the types of ships the service requires.
 

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate is working with the U.S. Coast Guard‘s Research and Development Center to administer a boater safety competition.

Participants in the U.S. Coast Guard Ready for Rescue Challenge are tasked with developing concepts to help the USCG locate people in bodies of water, DHS said Wednesday.

The $255K prize competition will be divided into three phases.

The first phase calls for concepts on life jackets, floatation devices or supplementary items for boater safety. Winners will receive a combined total of $25K.

Qualifying entries will advance to the second phase wherein participants will pitch proposed technologies at a Piranha pool. Winners who succeed in this phase will receive a combined total of $120K that they may use to create prototypes.

In the final phase, USCG will field qualifying prototypes with standard safety equipment and award a total of $110K for winning entries.

“Partnering with DHS S&T allows us to increase the Coast Guard’s access to innovations that make people in the water more detectable,” said Bert Macesker, executive director at USCG RDC.

The House on Tuesday passed by a voice vote a proposal to start negotiations on the proposed $675B defense appropriations measure with the Senate, The Hill reported Tuesday.

The Senate approved in August a package of appropriations bills that would authorize $854B in fiscal 2019 funds for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor and Education.

The House passed its $675B defense policy bill in June that would allocate $9.4 billion for 93 F-35 fighter jets and earmark $22.7 billion for 12 new Navy ships.

The report said the House has yet to approve its own domestic spending legislation and lawmakers expect to have a final appropriations bill in place before the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

David May, senior intelligence adviser at the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, has said there are five design updates the service has started to implement in order to counter adversaries across space, electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domains, C4ISRNET reported Tuesday.

May said at TechNet Augusta in August that one of those updates is the service’s plan to launch cyber and electromagnetic activities sections to facilitate spectrum management as well as the integration and synchronization of electronic warfare and cyber operations.

Other updates include the Army’s plan to establish electronic warfare platoons within brigades to work with signals intelligence groups; EW companies within expeditionary intelligence brigades; and a multidomain detachment at Fort Lewis in Washington.

May said the service will set up a cyber support battalion within Army Cyber Command that will integrate signals, intelligence, information, fires and cyber operations into a single formation.

The House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that would support the development of the Department of Homeland Security‘s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program.

The Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act would require the government to develop procedures for systemic cybersecurity risk reporting, regularly deploy new technologies and implement a strategy to grow the program, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas’ office said Tuesday.

Ratcliffe, who introduced the bill, said that codifying CDM would help federal network protection efforts keep up with the progression of cyber threats.

The CDM program was designed to provide the federal government with technologies that continuously detect and address cyber threats.

The Government Accountability Office has said that the U.S. Coast Guard’s plan to develop three new icebreaker ships runs the risk of exceeding projected costs and breaching production timetables.

In a report published Tuesday, the GAO pointed out that USCG establish acquisition baselines—which include schedule, cost and performance indicators—for the Heavy Polar Icebreaker Program even before conducting a preliminary design review, which, according to the HPIB framework, will be done after the shipbuilding contract is awarded in 2019.

The government audit agency warned that failing to conduct a design review first “puts the Coast Guard at risk of breaching its established baselines and having to revise them later in the acquisition process, after a contract has been signed and significant resources have already been committed to the program.”

Although the USCG’s plan does conform to the Department of Homeland Security’s acquisition policy, the GAO noted that it had previously called on the DHS to require the conduct of technical reviews like preliminary design reviews prior to the approval of a program’s baselines.

The watchdog also recommended that the DHS require the Coast Guard to revise the HPIB program baselines after the design review is completed and before ship construction begins.