The Commerce Department’s National Technical Information Service has asked companies, nonprofit and research organizations to submit proposals for the development of platforms and services that aim to streamline federal data collection, interoperability and analysis.

NTIS said in a notice posted June 15 on the Federal Register selected organizations will collaborate with NTIS through joint venture partnerships to design and test information systems and services for use by federal agencies, state and local government agencies and businesses.

Proposals should include information on novel technologies and systems that work to facilitate use of information and data services, methods for data sharing, description of proposed technologies and techniques for use in data analysis and interpretation, and platforms and processes designed to generate data-driven insights.

NTIS requires proposers to state in their submissions the technical areas their data platforms and services seek to address.

Such technical areas include data science and engineering, data analytics, geospatial analysis, search engine optimization, application programming interfaces, cognitive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, the notice said.

The agency will host a webinar and informational session on July 7 and will accept proposals through Aug. 1, according to the notice.

The Defense Department has started to gather public input on a proposed common information system designed to identify, request and record actions related to personnel security.

DoD said in a June 15 notice on Federal Register that the Defense Information System for Security will work to help the department determine an individual’s eligibility to access classified data, check employment suitability and perform personal identity verification for accessing government systems and facilities.

According to the department, DISS is composed of the Joint Verification System and Case Adjudication Tracking System.

The JVS application is designed to help Pentagon’s security managers and facility security officials to record access determinations and verify eligibility, while CATS works to assist DoD’s adjudicative community in the documentation of eligibility determinations.

DISS will also cover various records, including personal information, DoD affiliation types, employment status, eligibility status for security clearances, foreign travel and contacts, security-associated incident reports, debriefing as well as records of adjudication and investigations conducted by federal investigative agencies.

Comments to the proposed system of records are due July 15, according to the notice.

A committee of government and industry officials established by the Federal Aviation Administration has begun to develop standards and safeguards designed to detect, track and isolate data intrusions and other cyber attacks against aviation, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Andy Pasztor writes the panel is scheduled to submit the recommendations for such safeguards to the FAA in August.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in an interview on the sidelines of an international safety conference in Washington that dependence on large networks for data sharing suggests a need to “build many layers” of cyber protection, Pasztor reports.

Jens Hennig, co-chairman of the FAA-created international advisory committee, said the efforts of government and industry experts to draft such cyber protections for various types of aircraft are “actually telling [aviation operators] there is likely to be a hack” in the future, according to the newspaper.

Peter Skaves, chief scientific and technical adviser on cyber issues at FAA, told conference attendees that although the FAA has released approximately 3,000 directives on emergency airworthiness since 2005, the agency has not yet drafted a single mandate on information security, according to the report.

The Defense Department received at least one vulnerability report from more than 250 ethical hackers who took part in the department’s bug bounty program that occurred from April 18 to May 12, DoD News reported Friday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that 138 of those vulnerability reports during the Hack the Pentagon event were found to be legitimate and qualified for a bounty.

Participants worked to identify bugs in the department’s public-facing websites such as defense.gov, dodlive.mil, dvidshub.net, myafn.net and dimoc.mil, according to the report.

Carter added DoD partnered with San Francisco-based HackerOne to resolve the uncovered flaws.

The Defense Digital Service organization kicked off the $150,000 crowdsourcing initiative in March as part of efforts to strengthen the security of networks and systems across the department.

Lisa Wiswell, DDS digital security lead, said monetary rewards under the program range from $100 to $15,000 based on the number of qualified submissions.