The Department of Homeland Security and New York City’s police and fire departments engaged in an exercise to test new technologies the three entities believe could aid in efforts to contain and respond to shooting incidents.

DHS said Monday responders took part in a scenario that involved multiple active shooters with improvised explosive devices at the Leon M. Goldstein High School in Brooklyn.

The department added the exercise aimed to evaluate tools selected by NYPD, FDNY and DHS’ science and technology directorate that could support future operations.

“S&T’s role in this exercise is to see if new tools and equipment that have been designed to help responders in an active shooter situation perform as they should,” said Reginald Brothers, DHS under secretary for science and technology.

Brothers added video footage from the activity would support the directorate’s efforts to develop equipment that could support responders during high-pressure situations.

DHS said responders used SOCET GXP for geospatial intelligence; Mutualink to aid voice, text and radio interoperability; Crowd Evacuation Software system to assist in evacuation and the Unmanned Aerial Systems Software to help model threat vectors, launch points and potential distances during UAS attacks.

The U.S. Army Armament Research and Development Engineering Center provided evaluators and cameras to capture video footage to analyze the exercise from their Combating Terrorism Technology Evaluation Program.

NYPD officers from three special operations units took part in the exercise such as the department’s emergency services unit, critical response command and strategic response group.

The General Services Administration plans to award the next set of task orders under the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program in an effort to provide 41 small agencies access to cybersecurity services through cloud-based shared services, FCW reported Wednesday.

Mark Rockwell writes Jim Piche, group manager of GSA’s federal systems integration and management center, told attendees at an FCW-hosted event that GSA will issue CDM-as-a-service task orders by August.

Piche said GSA also plans to award task orders for privilege management under the CDM program’s second phase later this year, while identity management task orders will be “up for bid any moment now.”

Jim Quinn, lead system engineer for the CDM program management office at DHS, told FCW that DHS has started to consider plans to launch CDM’s Phase 4 that will focus on data protection on federal networks.

Jason Miller also reported for Federal News Radio that GSA and DHS have begun to collaborate with the Office of Management and Budget to restructure the CDM program.

The agencies’ move seeks to address the challenges associated with the adoption of a blanket purchase agreement for the five-year, $6 billion CDM program, including the lack of flexibility in the procurement of cyber products and services and failure to consider the agencies’ long-term maintenance and operations requirements, according to the report.

Piche said he expects GSA and DHS to unveil the new structure of the program by late summer of 2016, Miller reports.

The Congressional Budget Office has said a proposed House bill that calls for collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium to support state and local cybersecurity efforts would not directly affect  government spending or revenues.

CBO said Friday it estimates that the implementation of the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act would cost about $3 million annually through fiscal year 2021.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) introduced the bill in mid-March with the intent to encourage DHS and NCPC to offer cybersecurity training and technical support programs for agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure operators at the state and local levels.

“The cyber threat doesn’t just affect big corporations and the federal government – it affects folks at the local level too,” Castro said.

“This bill will allow communities to learn from our nation’s best cyber experts as they ensure local first responders are equipped to defend against and respond to cyber attacks,” he added.

The House Homeland Security Committee passed the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act in late April.

NCPC comprises the University of Texas at San Antonio, the  Texas A&M University, the University of Arkansas System, the University of Memphis and the Norwich University in Vermont.