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Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey Nominated as Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6
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Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey Nominated as Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has announced the nomination of Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general and to serve as the next deputy chief of staff, G-6, within the U.S. Army.

Austin, a three-time Wash100 awardee, disclosed Rey’s nomination by President Joe Biden in a general officer announcement published Friday.

Rey is the director of architecture, operations, networks and space within the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6.

Prior to this role, he was director of the network cross-functional team at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

If confirmed, Rey would succeed Lt. Gen. John Morrison, who assumed the deputy chief of staff position in August 2020, and serve as principal military adviser to the Army’s chief of staff and chief information officer for strategy, planning, network architecture and implementation of command, control, communications, cyber and networks for the service branch’s operations worldwide.

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Cloud Safe Task Force Proposes Initiative to Ensure Real-Time Monitoring of Cloud Cybersecurity
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Cloud Safe Task Force Proposes Initiative to Ensure Real-Time Monitoring of Cloud Cybersecurity

The Cloud Safe Task Force says U.S. government organizations responsible for national defense should collaborate with the country’s major cloud service providers, or CSPs, in order to enhance U.S. cybersecurity posture.

The task force made the recommendation following an April 8 meeting where it was noted that continued migration of U.S. data and systems to commercial cloud environments has reduced the government’s ability to monitor and respond to national cyber threats, MITRE said in a report released Wednesday.

The task force proposed the launch of the National Cloud Cyber Feed Initiative, which will work to facilitate information-sharing between government organizations like U.S. Cyber Command, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and CSPs like Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, which now possesses the technical capability to deliver information that would enable real-time cybersecurity monitoring.

The initiative’s objectives include the establishment of regular stakeholder dialogues regarding cloud security threats, incidents and best practices; the creation of a real-time view of CSP security measures that also compares their effectiveness; the establishment of a framework governing the responsibilities and authorities of the collaboration.

Further discussions need to take place regarding the initiative. Topics to pursue include what information would have to be shared, which organizations should provide it and which federal agencies should sponsor the effort.

The Cloud Safe Task Force is a collaboration between MITRE, the Cloud Security Alliance, the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center and the IT Acquisition Advisory Council.

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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks Shares Thoughts on Warfighting Evolution
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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks Shares Thoughts on Warfighting Evolution

War is constantly changing, and today, shifts are driven by “the accelerating pace of technology,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

Offering land power as an example, Hicks, a 2024 Wash100 Award winner, told Army War College graduates that change will not bring an end to this element of warfighting, but transform how it looks, the Department of Defense reported on Friday.

She emphasized the importance of being a “change agent” as the United States responds to the challenges of the evolving geopolitical landscape.

According to Hicks, the war in Ukraine has shown that Russia is “an acute threat to the international system.” China, she said, is the pacing challenge for the U.S., and she expects this relationship to continue in the foreseeable future.

She also noted climate change and pandemics as “threat multipliers” that influence national security issues.

Hicks highlighted individuals “who are seizing opportunities to innovate every day — like using data and [artificial intelligence] to improve our decision advantage, leveraging commercial technologies to deliver capabilities to the warfighter at greater speed and scale, and crafting novel operational concepts for how to use those capabilities in ways that confound our competitors and achieve our missions in the battlespace.”

The military, she said, is just one part of deterrence.

“Today’s complex security challenges require whole-of-government solutions. In every region of the world, preserving and promoting peace demands that America also has a robust diplomatic corps, well-resourced development agencies, and a world-class intelligence community,” she explained.

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NASA OIG Releases Report on Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative
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NASA OIG Releases Report on Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative

The NASA Office of Inspector General has revealed in a new report that the agency has made progress in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative but numerous challenges remain, which have resulted in significant cost increases and schedule delays.

OIG found that the CLPS incurred total initiative cost increases of $208.2 million and an average schedule delay of 14 months per task order, with five of eight task orders experiencing both price increases and schedule delays.

According to the report, NASA increased its oversight of the CLPS initiative and required detailed vendor proposals, higher costs and delayed delivery schedules.

“Specifically, inserting a larger lander to accommodate the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) into CLPS’s early schedule interfered with a progressive development approach. This introduced the added risk of beginning the first large lander delivery before knowledge could be gained from the success (or failure) of smaller deliveries,” the report reads.

OIG made six recommendations, including conducting updated market research on the commercial lunar economy and reassessing NASA’s role in the commercial lunar delivery market to increase accountability and transparency for the CLPS initiative.

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SBA Launching Line of Credit Program to Address Small Businesses’ Need for Working Capital
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SBA Launching Line of Credit Program to Address Small Businesses’ Need for Working Capital

The Small Business Administration is expanding its loan programs with the 7(a) Working Capital Pilot Program, which is set to launch within the year.

WCP is a line of credit product that features an annual guaranty fee structure that works to offer greater flexibility than a traditional term loan to meet specific business needs, the SBA said Thursday.

WCP can, for example, offer transaction-based loans to fund individual orders or projects; or asset-based loans, which offer small businesses a means to access working capital against their assets.

SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman said her organization launched WCP to help small businesses finance growth opportunities by securing working capital through competitively-priced lines of credit.

“As the Biden-Harris Administration doubles down on its commitment to help entrepreneurs achieve their American Dreams of business ownership, this newly structured line of credit will empower more small businesses to pursue opportunities from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, create jobs, and grow their businesses,” Guzman said.

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Lt. Gen. Heath Collins: MDA to Test Hypersonic & Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor
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Lt. Gen. Heath Collins: MDA to Test Hypersonic & Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, director of the Missile Defense Agency and a 2024 Wash100 Award recipient, shared that the two Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor-equipped satellites will be tested in about a week, National Defense reported.

Speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies-hosted discussion, Collins explained that the system MDA launched in February is meant to track hypersonic ballistic missiles from above, unlike the traditional sensors that are ground-based.

“And so instead of being down, looking up to find a hypersonic, you really want to be high, looking down to track hypersonic. That’s what Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor is all about,” said Collins.

The initial hypersonic testbed calibration flight is planned to have a target going at up to hypersonic speeds in view of the satellites.

The MDA leader elaborated, “It’ll be the first hypersonic target they’ve seen and run through the entire fire control kill chain, looking at sensitivity, timeliness and accuracy of those two systems to feed into and be applied against the demonstration objectives that we have for [Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor] and potentially inform changes … or substantiate that that will work, and then that feeds forward into [the Space Development Agency’s] future.”

The next system test is expected later in the year, according to Collins.

GSA Requests Information on USCIS Technical Operations Support Services Contract
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GSA Requests Information on USCIS Technical Operations Support Services Contract

The General Services Administration is seeking information on potential sources of technical operations support services for the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

GSA said the USCIS Office of Information Technology’s Enterprise Infrastructure Division requires contractor support services to operate the Technical Operations Center located at the USCIS Enterprise Operations Center at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The TOC serves as the central authority that monitors, reports, coordinates and remediates critical incidents, maintenance and outages for the USCIS information technology infrastructure.

Tasks include enterprise monitoring, critical incident management, operations and maintenance support, program and project management, dashboard management and reporting, end‐to‐end performance monitoring and alerting, and engineering, infrastructure and implementation support.

The Enterprise Infrastructure Division receives technical operations support services under an existing contract that will expire in fiscal year 2025.

Responses to the request for information are due June 21.

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Treasury Requests Information on AI Uses, Opportunities & Risks in Finance Sector
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Treasury Requests Information on AI Uses, Opportunities & Risks in Finance Sector

The Department of the Treasury is seeking industry input on the potential uses of artificial intelligence in the financial services industry and opportunities and risks presented by financial institutions’ use of AI applications.

Treasury said Thursday it aims to better understand the opportunities and challenges that AI presents to financial institutions, including potential obstacles for facilitating the responsible use of AI and recommendations for enhancing regulatory frameworks applicable to AI systems in financial services.

The department is also seeking information on financial institutions’ use of AI to assist in decisions, manage various types of risks, assist in capital markets activities, manage internal operations, improve customer management, conduct marketing activities and manage regulatory requirements.

“The Biden Administration is committed to fostering innovation in the financial sector while ensuring that we protect consumers, investors, and our financial system from risks that new technologies pose,” said Nellie Liang, undersecretary for domestic finance.

The request for information comes shortly after Treasury released its 2024 National Strategy for Combatting Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing outlining the importance of industry outreach to industry outreach to understand how financial institutions are using AI to comply with applicable anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism requirements.

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CYBERCOM Plans to Consolidate Army, USAF Software Factories Under Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture; Khoi Nguyen Quoted
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CYBERCOM Plans to Consolidate Army, USAF Software Factories Under Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture; Khoi Nguyen Quoted

U.S. Cyber Command intends to combine some of the software factories of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force under the Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture and establish a new program executive office using new acquisition authorities, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

There are six program offices within JCWA and each has its own DevSecOps platforms.

Khoi Nguyen, command acquisition executive and director of the cyber acquisition and technology directorate (J9) at CYBERCOM, said the move to consolidate the platforms of those offices will help reduce duplication and cybersecurity vulnerabilities associated with operating redundant systems.

Congress mandates the creation of the JCWA PEO by 2027. The new office will be composed of six program managers from each program office: the Air Force’s Unified Platform, the USAF’s Joint Cyber Command and Control, the Army’s Persistent Cyber Training Environment, the Army’s Joint Common Access Program, CyberCom’s sensors and the Joint Development Environment, which is run by the Army and overseen by the command.

Nguyen said the planned consolidation will help CYBERCOM improve its ability to defend its supply chain for software development efforts and enable the program offices to use the same “technology stack.”

“In the effort to reduce redundancy, we’re looking to combine or develop a singular platform that then we would GFE [provide as Government-Furnished Equipment] to all the program shops and say, ‘Hey, this is a common platform, [like a] Kubernetes environment, that we’re going to define, and you will just deliver your applications as containers or as virtual machines onto this common platform,” he added.

Nguyen noted that the command expects the common platform to be deployed in the cloud, edge processing and other environments.

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Leonel Garciga Offers Guidance on Army’s Transition to Internet Protocol Version 6
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Leonel Garciga Offers Guidance on Army’s Transition to Internet Protocol Version 6

Leonel Garciga, chief information officer of the U.S. Army, has signed a memorandum providing guidance for the military branch’s transition to Internet Protocol Version 6 and operational deployment of IPv6 across all networked information systems, applications, devices and services of the Department of the Army.

According to the May 31 memo, all new Army information systems that use IP technologies must be IPv6-enabled before implementation and operational use starting fiscal year 2025.

IPv6 offers a strategic opportunity to improve IP mobility and efficiency when it comes to delivering information services.

By the end of FY 2025, systems and networks that cannot be moved to IPv6-only must operate in a dual-stack environment.

The service’s information systems that cannot be transitioned to IPv6 must be identified and justified under an approved plan of action and milestones schedule for retiring or replacing systems by the end of FY 2025.

“In rare circumstances where there will be difficulties conforming to IPv6 transition requirements, the responsible system owner should submit a waiver request to the Army’s Unified Network Council (AUNC) to waive this requirement,” the document states.

The memo also assigns responsibilities for the Army CIO, deputy chief of staff G-6, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology and system owners and command administrators.

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