A cybersecurity proposal from NASA‘s Ames Research Center in California seeks to address vulnerabilities on the agency’s current and emerging infrastructure through collaboration with industry, Fedscoop reported Monday.

Greg Otto writes Jerry Davis, NASA Ames chief information officer, is working to get the Gryphon X initiative in front of agency leaders.

“NASA’s not a cyber entity,” Davis told Fedscoop in an interview.

“[Gryphon X] is something new and so it takes a little while for people to ingest and understand it,” he added, according to the report.

The report said the Ames Research Center aims to build a simulation testbed for new technologies and a training hub for NASA cybersecurity professionals through the initiative.

Davis also envisions the program reaching out to potential industry partners via government contract vehicles and cooperative research-and-development agreements, Otto noted.

The National Institute of Science and Technology plans to issue a second public draft guide on May 4 for agencies to build resilient systems to combat cyber threats, Federal News Radio reported Tuesday.

NIST Fellow Ron Ross told an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology forum in Arlington, Virginia Monday the special publication will form the agency’s holistic approach and its strategy to help the government counter cyber attacks, Meredith Somers reports.

Ross said the public draft is “an engineering process, but it’s not just a technical set of processes,” according to the report.

He told the audience the guide will apply an entire organization and encompass human factors, supply chain acquisitions and architectures, the station reports.

The House Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee voted Thursday to endorse the inclusion of cyber opposition forces to U.S. military training programs, Nextgov reported Monday.

Aliya Sternstein writes language in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act calls on the Defense Department to establish a program for certifying and training cyber opposition forces.

The report said the provision would also require geographic combatant commands to enter into agreements with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter about the use of opposition teams in cyber exercises.

“The committee recognizes that special arrangements will be needed to deconflict training from real-world activities that may happen on mission networks,” according to NDAA documents obtained by Nextgov.

An HASC official told Nextgov that a cyber opposition group would be like an aggressor squadron that takes part in the U.S. Air Force‘s Red Flag aerial combat training.

The Defense Department has formed “national mission teams” to conduct offensive cyber-based operations against the Islamic State militant organization as part of a wider effort to disrupt the group’s communication activities, The New York Times reported Sunday.

David Sanger writes DoD’s latest cyber campaign aims to weaken the ability of Islamic State militants to spread their extremist propaganda, recruit adherents, disseminate commander orders and fund operations.

“We’re trying to both physically and virtually isolate ISIL,” Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted as saying by The Times.

The report said the effort is aligned with a White House strategy to incorporate U.S.-built cyber weapons into the fight against the militant group.

National mission teams have begun to place “implants” into the Islamic State organization’s networks to examine the online habits of its commanders, according to the report.

Sanger noted DoD aims to imitate those activities or alter messages the group transmits in cyberspace with the intent to redirect militants to areas where U.S. ground forces or drones can target them.