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CISA, Partners Issue New Guidance to Help Organizations Reduce Memory Safety Vulnerabilities
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CISA, Partners Issue New Guidance to Help Organizations Reduce Memory Safety Vulnerabilities

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has published new guidance to support organizations’ efforts to address memory safety risks in open-source software, or OSS, projects.

Titled “Exploring Memory Safety in Critical Open Source Projects,” the document is created to also help software manufacturers formulate road maps and plans to address memory safety in external dependencies, which typically include OSS, CISA said Wednesday.

The guide is in line with the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy in its aim to invest in memory-safe programming languages and work with the open-source community in establishing an interagency Open Source Software Security Initiative.

Co-developed with the FBI, the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Canadian Cyber Security Center, the guidance builds on “The Case for Memory Safe Road Maps” publication, which reported in December 2023 that memory safety vulnerabilities are among the most prevalent types of software security problems.

The new cybersecurity guidance contains methodologies and results that organizations and software manufacturers must study to help them reduce memory safety vulnerabilities and make secure and informed choices.

The publication will also enable organizations to better understand the memory-unsafety risk in OSS and assess strategies to reduce such threat.

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Karyn Runstrom Appointed DLA Chief of Staff
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Karyn Runstrom Appointed DLA Chief of Staff

Karyn Runstrom, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Logistics Agency, has been named as the new chief of staff at DLA.

In this capacity, she will lead DLA staff operations in enterprise integration, strategic planning, legislative affairs, installation management, organizational governance and strategic communications, DLA said Wednesday.

Runstrom will oversee teams related to small business programs, intelligence, protocol, inspector general, equal employment opportunity, public affairs, and the director’s staff group.

Since April, she has been serving as acting chief of staff of DLA following the retirement of Eric Smith from the role.

“Ms. Runstrom has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the DLA mission, having served as deputy director, DLA Information Operations, since August 2019, as well as multiple other roles in her career with DLA,” Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, the agency’s director, wrote in an email to senior leaders.

Her career at DLA included time as deputy executive director for the logistics, policy and strategic programs directorate within DLA Logistics Operations, program manager of the agency’s Planning Improvement Effort and retail integration branch chief.

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AWS Launches $50M Program to Boost Generative AI Use in Government
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AWS Launches $50M Program to Boost Generative AI Use in Government

Amazon Web Services has launched the $50 million AWS Public Sector Generative Artificial Intelligence Impact Initiative to support projects that enhance the use of generative AI in critical government missions.

Dave Levy, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS and a five-time Wash100 awardee, wrote in an article published Wednesday the company will offer AWS promotional credits, trainings, technical support and networking opportunities through the effort.

Participants willl leverage AWS generative AI services and infrastructure such as Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Q, Amazon SageMaker, AWS HealthScribe, AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia for their projects.

Running from June 26, 2024 through June 30, 2026, the initiative is open to new and existing AWS Worldwide Public Sector clients and partners globally.

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NIST Solicits Comments on Draft Implementation Roadmap for National Standards Strategy for Critical & Emerging Tech
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NIST Solicits Comments on Draft Implementation Roadmap for National Standards Strategy for Critical & Emerging Tech

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking public comments on a draft roadmap for the implementation of the U.S. government’s National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology.

NIST said Wednesday the draft implementation roadmap establishes outcomes and actions for the government to boost investments in pre-standards development efforts related to critical and emerging technologies, or CETs.

The roadmap also seeks to expand CET standards participation, build up a CET standards-savvy workforce and ensure integrity and inclusivity in the development of CET standards.

The document lists eight lines of effort to meet such objectives and seven actions for sustained implementation outcomes.

Those actions include increasing investment in CET research and development and standardization to sustain U.S. technical leadership; strengthening support for federal programs to remove barriers and promote U.S. stakeholder participation in international standards development; and expanding communication, information-sharing and other cooperative efforts between the U.S. government and private sector.

Comments are due July 12.

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DOE’s CIO Office Unveils Reference Guide for Generative AI
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DOE’s CIO Office Unveils Reference Guide for Generative AI

The Department of Energy’s Office of the Chief Information Officer has released the second version of DOE’s Generative Artificial Intelligence Reference Guide.

DOE said the document offers an overview of the key benefits, risks, best practices and considerations associated with the responsible development, use and implementation of generative AI tools.

The reference guide provides a background on generative AI and cites opportunities to apply the technology, including key applications for text, speech, code and image or video.

For text, the use cases cited in the document are summarizing documents, inferring reference, translating language and writing emails.

The guide’s operationalization section provides foundational knowledge of three key concepts surrounding generative AI technology: organizational roles, public versus protected data and service models.

The document outlines generative AI-related best practices that are classified into people, organization and technology categories.

Under the tech category, best practices include providing a safe space for experimentation, exercising data minimization best practices when collecting data for a system and considering using synthetic data to mitigate risks surrounding privacy, data integrity and insufficient data.

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David Cattler Vows to Revamp Government Background Checking System
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David Cattler Vows to Revamp Government Background Checking System

David Cattler, director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, aims to ensure that National Background Education Services works to its full potential after initially not reaching its effectiveness goals.

NBIS is an information technology system meant to modernize the background investigation process. However, since DCSA took over the system in 2020, they have struggled to get it up and running, the Department of Defense said Thursday.

Cattler, who has served as DCSA director for just over 90 days, declared his commitment to NBIS’ progress on Wednesday to members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s subcommittee on government operations and the federal workforce.

“Simply and directly, the delay in fielding NBIS is unacceptable to everyone,” Cattler said. “Oversight from GAO [Government Accountability Office] and Congress are important parts of this ecosystem of accountability. As we move forward, we will be guided by what is in the best interest of national security and what is in the best interest of the taxpayer.”

The system is expected to be a vital component of the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative, often referred to as TW 2.0, which aims to build a single personnel security vetting system for the federal government.

Cattler said, “When complete, NBIS will deliver robust data security, enhanced customer experience and integrate data access across the whole-of-government and cleared industry.”

In numerous reports, the GAO outlined areas DCSA needs to improve to move forward with NBIS.

“Even before I became DCSA’s director, I closely studied these reports and noted GAO’s concerns,” Cattler stated. “These recommendations do guide my focus and my direction as the director of DCSA. I have directed that we renew our focus on these recommendations, and we close the action items presented within them as soon as we can.”

Over the next 18 months, DCSA will prioritize five actions to push delivery of NBIS — modernizing and migrating NBIS applications; aligning acquisition and development actions; adapting the NBIS workforce; aligning program cost and service pricing and strengthening cybersecurity protections.

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GSA Raising VETS 2 Ceiling to $6.1B
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GSA Raising VETS 2 Ceiling to $6.1B

The General Services Administration is increasing the ceiling of the Veterans Technology Services 2 governmentwide acquisition contract from $5 billion to $6.1 billion, a move that will bring about multiple benefits, according to Laura Stanton, assistant commissioner at the Federal Acquisition Service’s Office of Information Technology Category.

The ceiling increase will ensure that VETS 2 remains available to federal agencies as they work to achieve the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business participation goal of 5 percent, as established by the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Stanton said Wednesday on her GSA blog.

The timing of the ceiling increase will also ensure that disruptions to the use of the contract will be avoided. The increase was announced even before the current ceiling is reached. Projections show that 80 percent of the current ceiling will be reached within the fiscal year.

The increase is also expected to provide SDVOSBs the opportunity to join federal IT procurements, supporting the goal of the administration to foster diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

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NASA Launches Final Spacecraft to Join NOAA’s Advanced Weather Satellite Constellation
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NASA Launches Final Spacecraft to Join NOAA’s Advanced Weather Satellite Constellation

NASA has sent to space the last satellite to complete the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES, constellation.

The space agency said Tuesday the satellite was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida using SpaceX’s Falcon rocket, which lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at 5:26 p.m. on Tuesday.

Commenting on the successful launch, Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA and a 2024 Wash100 Award recipient, said GOES-U will monitor weather in real-time. “This fleet of advanced satellites is strengthening resilience to our changing climate, and protecting humanity from weather hazards on Earth and in space,” the exec shared.

GOES-U will be renamed GOES-19 once it reaches a geostationary orbit, where it will monitor weather in North America, the Central and South Americas, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean.

The GOES constellation will provide coverage of weather and hazardous environmental conditions across the Western Hemisphere, according to NASA.

In addition, it will assist in forecasting near-Earth space weather that could potentially disrupt satellite electronics, GPS and radio communications.

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Rear Adm. Todd Evans Appointed Commander of NAVSEA Warfare Centers
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Rear Adm. Todd Evans Appointed Commander of NAVSEA Warfare Centers

Rear Adm. Todd Evans officially took command of the Warfare Centers of the Naval Sea Systems Command on June 24, NAVSEA announced Monday.

As commander of both Naval Surface Warfare Center and Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Evans will lead over 29,000 civilian and active duty personnel responsible for the U.S. Navy’s research, development, test and evaluation efforts.

Evans, former vice commander of Naval Air Systems Command, succeeded Rear Adm. Thomas Dickinson, who has been assigned as a program executive officer for integrated warfare systems.

The new leader of the NAVSEA Warfare Centers has been in service for over two decades, his first fleet tour being with the Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron Fourteen “Vanguard” in 1997.

Since then, Evans has assumed roles of increasing responsibilities including commanding officer of HM-14, in-service Integrated Product Team lead supporting the Presidential Helicopters Program Office and executive assistant to NAVAIR commander.

Evans received a bachelor of science degree in marine engineering and a Navy commission from the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.

Register here for the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Navy Summit on Aug. 15 and hear insights from naval, government and industry leaders. Click here to learn more about the in-person event.

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DCSA Opens 1st Regional Office in Texas to Enhance Agency Coordination
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DCSA Opens 1st Regional Office in Texas to Enhance Agency Coordination

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, marking the official opening of its first regional office designed to enhance how the agency operates.

Located within Federal Building in Farmers Branch, Texas, the Central Region Headquarters will house agency leaders responsible for background investigations, counterintelligence and insider threat, and industrial security functions, DCSA said Tuesday.

Previously, such activities were managed from different sites in Dallas and Fort Worth.

According to DCSA Deputy Director Daniel Lecce, the new facility provides a single location where agency heads leading said functions can coordinate and align their work within the 21 states in the Central Region.

The regional headquarters was established after the DCSA revamped its field structure in 2022. The agency plans to open its Western Regional Headquarters in San Diego in fiscal year 2026.

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