NSTC Releases Report on How US Government Can Advance International Cooperation on Quantum IT
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NSTC Releases Report on How US Government Can Advance International Cooperation on Quantum IT

The U.S. government should establish long-term mechanisms dedicated to the financing of international cooperation and collaboration in the field of quantum information science and technology, according to the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Quantum Information Science.

The subcommittee made the recommendation in a recently-released report titled “Advancing International Cooperation in Quantum Information Science and Technology,” which proposes actions that the U.S. can take to help advance QIST knowledge and innovation through international partnerships.

The subcommittee also called on agencies to better coordinate with one another when it comes to a portfolio of government-wide international QIST engagements.

A third recommendation involves the U.S. government establishing and monitoring metrics that would measure global competitiveness in QIST and enabling technologies.

The report was prepared in light of what the subcommittee described as the “transformative potential” of QIST in the collection, processing and transmission of information and the potential benefits such changes could bring.

And although the U.S. has historically supported international QIST cooperation, areas for improvement remain. The recommendations discussed in the report, along with those in the report titled “The Role of International Talent in Quantum Information Science,” seek to address those areas.

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SpaceWERX Unveils Latest Innovate to Accelerate Cohort for Aerospace Tech Innovations
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SpaceWERX Unveils Latest Innovate to Accelerate Cohort for Aerospace Tech Innovations

SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and a division within AFWERX, has commenced its second Innovate to Accelerate, or I2A, cohort in line with efforts to boost the development of technological innovations in aerospace operations.

The Air Force Research Laboratory said Friday the latest I2A will focus on developing both the Alternative Positioning, Navigation and Timing, or AltPNT, and the Digital Spacefort of the Future.

The I2A program is intended to help companies under the SpaceWERX Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs find commercial success through the lifecycle of their Direct to Phase II, or D2P2. Participants will have the opportunity to receive mentorship, resources and collaborate with experts and investors.

The latest I2A cohort was launched in July 2024 and will run for 12 weeks. It will culminate in an Expo Day event on Oct. 17, 2024 in El Segundo, California. The project is made possible with the help of New Mexico Technologies University and Disruptive Technology Index, or DTI.

The National Security Innovation Network, or NSIN, meanwhile, is involved with AFWERX’s Project Vanguard initiative. The project is intended for those selected for the I2A program to have access to mentors, partners and private funding opportunities.

The goal of the AltPNT is to develop satellite-based systems beyond the traditional navigation satellite systems. With the help of Space Systems Command, the program intends to make navigation systems more resilient and accurate.

The Digital Space of the Future challenge, meanwhile, has partnered with Assured Access to Space. It aims to advance digital technologies and optimize aerospace launch and operational processes.

Companies chosen are automatically enrolled in the I2A program. They will participate in the AFWERX Challenge Definition Workshop, where they get to work with key space stakeholders and roll into a SpaceWERX specific topic D2P2 solicitation.

A total of 122 proposals were received for the AltPNT challenge with only 20 selected for funding. The 20 chosen companies got a total contract value of $34.8 million to develop proposals for innovations that will benefit the defense and commercial sectors.

The companies selected to participate are as follows:

  • AOSense
  • Applied Systems Engineering Inc.
  • Devorto
  • Infinity Systems Engineering
  • Innovative Scientific Solutions Inc.
  • Mesa Quantum Systems
  • NAVSYS
  • nou Systems
  • Polaris Sensor Technologies
  • Slingshot Aerospace
  • StarNav
  • TeraSense
  • Thomas Youmans
  • Trident Sensing
  • TRL11
  • TrustPoint
  • Xairos Systems
  • Xona Space Systems

The Digital Spaceport of the Future challenge, meanwhile, received 150 proposals. The 12 companies chosen for funding secured a total contract value of $57 million. They are tasked with developing the efficiency, safety and sustainability of spaceports through digital twins, artificial intelligence, automation and data analytics.

The following companies will participate in the challenge:

  • Beast Code
  • Black Rock Engineering & Technology
  • Colvin Run Networks
  • Federated Wireless
  • Lifescale Analytics
  • Parry Labs
  • RapidFort
  • Rise8
  • Silotech Group
  • UTSI International
  • VETS

Arthur Grijalva, director of SpaceWERX, stressed the importance of the innovative cohort focusing on AltPNT and the Digital Spaceport of the Future. “This initiative marks a significant step towards transforming space operations through advanced technology, fostering collaboration among industry leaders, startups and government entities.”

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US Army to Screen Laser Weapon Proposals in 2025 Competition
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US Army to Screen Laser Weapon Proposals in 2025 Competition

The U.S. Army is scheduling in the 2025 first quarter a competition for the proposals it received to develop the service’s short-range air defense system called Enduring High Energy Laser, or HEL, Defense News reported Monday.

The proposals were collected during the Army’s industry day in July, with team submissions as well as individual entries, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office director, said.

The service has recently deployed laser prototypes, including 50-kilowatt systems designed to counter short-range threats.

Raytheon delivered the first 50-kw prototype with Kord Technologies, a KBR unit, as the lead integrator.

In addition, the Army’s RCCTO is currently assessing options on 10-, 20- and 300-kilowatt systems for wide-ranging threats and missions.

The service branch expects to receive in 2025 the 300-kilowatt laser, which is geared for indirect fire protection against such threats as rockets, mortars and drones.

Rasch’s office is also waiting for two other prototypes that the teams of Lockheed Martin and nLight are separately developing.

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FedRAMP Announces Shift to One Authorization Designation, Offers Update on JAB Transition
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FedRAMP Announces Shift to One Authorization Designation, Offers Update on JAB Transition

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program has announced that it is transitioning to one designation of FedRAMP Authorized as part of its modernization effort aimed at accelerating federal agencies’ secure adoption of cloud services.

FedRAMP said Monday it will eliminate the “authorization path” filter on the FedRAMP Marketplace in the next few weeks and that cloud service providers that have secured certification through the Joint Authorization Board, or JAB, will have their historic designation included in their Marketplace description.

For CSPs that were authorized by the JAB, the program will initially shift continuous monitoring to FedRAMP or to one of the former JAB agencies such as the General Services Administration and the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

FedRAMP expects to migrate continuous monitoring for CSPs not used by a former JAB agency to another agency client and will continue supporting a number of CSPs that were originally prioritized by the JAB to issue a program authorization.

For the long term, the program plans to establish criteria and an approach to expanding the authorization marketwide.

FedRAMP will host a virtual question-and-answer session on Aug. 14 for cloud providers that were authorized or prioritized by the JAB.

In May, the Office of Management and Budget appointed seven inaugural members to the newly established FedRAMP Board, which replaced the program’s JAB.

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DARPA Holds AI Cyber Challenge to Boost AI-Driven Cybersecurity
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DARPA Holds AI Cyber Challenge to Boost AI-Driven Cybersecurity

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, recently held the qualifying round for the AI Cyber Challenge, or AIxCC, a competition that challenges participants to push the limits of AI-driven cybersecurity.

DARPA said Sunday the semifinal competition of the AIxCC was held during DEF CON 32, which took place from Aug. 8-11. More than 12,500 people attended the event, which proved how critical the competition, particularly AI and cybersecurity, is to real life.

The semifinal round narrowed down the field to the top seven teams. Each of these seven teams will receive $2 million and qualify for the final stage of the two-year competition, which is scheduled for August 2025.

The seven teams advancing to the final stage include:

  •    42-b3yond-6ug
  •    all_you_need_is_a_fuzzing_brain
  •    Lacrosse
  •    Shellphish
  •    Team Atlanta
  •    Theori
  •    Trail of Bits

AIxCC, with the help of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, asked participants to come up with AI and cybersecurity innovations to protect important open-source software that enables modern life. These enhanced AI systems will be necessary in defending different sectors such as public utilities, healthcare and finance, especially since the software is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks.

During the semifinal competition, participating teams were asked to create “cyber reasoning systems” to tackle “challenge projects.” These AI systems should have the capability to automatically detect and repair vulnerabilities in software.

Nearly 40 teams submitted their cyber reasoning systems and each one was tested on the same set of challenge projects, which included software like Jenkins, Linux kernel, Nginx, SQLite3 and Apache Tika. The AI systems were scored based on a public algorithm.

The AI systems developed by the participants found 22 unique synthetic vulnerabilities and 15 of those were fixed by the systems. Eleven unique patches for the C-based challenges and four for Java-based challenges were also determined. Additionally, the systems found a real-world bug in the SQLite3 software.

The seven teams who made it to the final round will have one year to further develop their technology. A total of $29.5 million in prizes is up for grabs during the culmination of the competition.

Learn everything you need to know about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. Register here to watch the webinar.

DARPA Holds AI Cyber Challenge to Boost AI-Driven Cybersecurity
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DCSA to Launch Continuous Vetting Services for Non-Sensitive Public Trust Workers Within the Week
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DCSA to Launch Continuous Vetting Services for Non-Sensitive Public Trust Workers Within the Week

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency will, within the week, begin a phased rollout of continuous vetting, or CV, services for the non-sensitive public trust, or NSPT, workforce as part of the Trusted Workforce 2.0 whole-of-government personnel vetting reform effort.

The DCSA said Monday that the implementation is being carried out in collaboration with multiple agencies that have volunteered to serve as early adopters of CV, which will work to replace a requirement to subject NSPT workers to a security investigation every five years.

In lieu of such reinvestigations, CV will subject individuals to regular background checks to ensure continuing compliance with security clearance requirements. Accompanying CV are a variety of attendant services, including reporting, alert management and real time threat analysis.

Commenting on the rollout, DCSA Director David Cattler said, “Expansion of CV to the NSPT workforce is a critical component of federal Trusted Workforce 2.0 policy and enhances the trustworthiness of all federal employees.”

Implementing CV on the NSPT population is of particular significance because such workers include those who hold non-national security roles but could, through misconduct, nevertheless damage the integrity of the service. In addition, public trust positions include a variety of key services like rulemaking, public safety and health services, and law enforcement.

The DCSA aims to provide by the end of fiscal year 2025 all customer agencies with the ability to let them enroll their NSPT workers into CV.

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Jen Easterly Says Federal Computer Software Manufacturing Should Improve
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Jen Easterly Says Federal Computer Software Manufacturing Should Improve

Due to a recent surge of cybersecurity infiltrations, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, believes the technology industry must advance computer software manufacturing processes to better protect against such attacks, CyberScoop reported Friday.

The 2024 Wash100 awardee relayed her beliefs during the Black Hat security conference on Thursday. Easterly said, “We don’t have a cybersecurity problem. We have a software quality problem.”

“We have a multi-billion dollar cybersecurity industry because for decades, technology vendors have been allowed to create defective, insecure, flawed software,” Easterly added.

In March, Easterly and CISA unveiled a Secure by Design pledge, the main principles of which include multi-factor authentication, lessening default passwords, reducing vulnerability classes and increasing customer security patch installation to secure product development.

The Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act also seeks to implement an interagency committee within the Office of the National Cyber Director to mobilize a program to improve cybersecurity and information security regulations and compliance requirements.

Easterly emphasized the importance of Congress playing its part in improving software vulnerabilities.

“Congress can also have a transformative impact by establishing a software liability regime with an articulable standard of care and safe harbor provisions for those vendors that innovate responsibly, prioritizing secure development processes,” Easterly stated.

Since the Secure by Design pledge launch, Easterly said 200 companies have signed on.

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How to Ensure Supply Chain Security
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How to Ensure Supply Chain Security

Cyber attacks are on the rise, and government contractors are looking at new ways to protect their valuable assets, data and information. Executive Mosaic spoke with DTS CEO and President Ed Tuorinsky in a new video interview to find out how companies should be thinking about supply chain security in the digital age.

Understand Your Information Flow

According to Tuorinsky, the first step in ensuring supply chain security is understanding the flow of information within your organization. That can help companies understand which partners can put them at risk and which ones can’t.

Companies have information flowing in and out at all times. At the lowest risk level is general business communications, which may look like emails back and forth between companies and partners or between the sales team and potential customers.

One step up from that is proprietary information that a company may want to limit to internal use but still may share externally with the right partners.

Some of the more sensitive information a company has includes personal information — like social security numbers. In the government contracting space, especially when working with the Department of Defense, companies may also have controlled unclassified information, or CUI.

“Really understanding the information flow and what partners are receiving what — that’s really the start of your supply chain security,” Tuorinsky said. “Understanding who’s receiving what, what is that information and should it be protected.”

Determine Which Partners Should Be Vetted

Companies can have a wide range of vendors and partners, from office supplies providers to subcontractors. Not all partners require the same kinds of supply chain security and controls, Tuorinsky explained.

“Staples, for example — you’re ordering your supplies, paper, pencils, pens. They have your credit card information, but they’re not in that critical information flow. They’re a vendor, they’re a supplier of yours. Yes, if your information gets stolen, it is a hassle to change that, but it’s not critical,” he said.

However, if a company outsources something like business development, that’s when company proprietary information, financial information and even CUI could come into play.

“That vendor has to be vetted,” Tuorinsky emphasized. “You are sharing critical information with them, and you want to make sure not only your corporate information is protected, but your potential client information is protected.”

Unlock more supply chain security insights by watching Ed Tuorinsky’s video interview.

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Labor Department CIO Gundeep Ahluwalia Stepping Down
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Labor Department CIO Gundeep Ahluwalia Stepping Down

Gundeep Ahluwalia, chief information officer of the Department of Labor, is stepping down after serving as CIO for eight years, Federal News Network reported Monday.

In an email to staff obtained by FNN, Ahluwalia’s last day at DOL would be Friday, Aug. 16.

According to the report, Louis Charlier, the department’s deputy CIO, will assume the role of acting CIO.

Under Ahluwalia’s leadership, DOL has established a digital infrastructure during the pandemic, advanced cloud adoption, implemented cloud-based cybersecurity capabilities, modernized more than 500 business applications and enabled the digitization of labor certification programs and enhanced the workman compensation program delivery, among other efforts.

“Our successes in creating novel funding mechanisms, Technology Modernization Funding wins, legendary TechDay, creating resilient infrastructure, websites, applications, mobile applications, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are all things I can talk about for days!” he wrote in the email.

Ahluwalia joined DOL in August 2016 as deputy CIO.

Before the Labor Department, he spent four years at the Food and Drug Administration as deputy director of business informatics.

Prior to joining federal service, the CIO was director for information technology and application support at Agentrics.

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VA Taps Electronic Health Information System for Research to Help Improve Clinical Care
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VA Taps Electronic Health Information System for Research to Help Improve Clinical Care

The Department of Veterans Affairs has partnered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to establish a knowledge-sharing website using VA electronic health records to accelerate research that can support improved clinical care.

The platform, called Centralized Interactive Phenomics Resource, or CIPHER, can open a broader sharing of research findings within the scientific community, the VA said.

The public-facing online resource, open to VA and non-VA researchers, provides data culled from the department’s integrated health care system—the United States’ largest.

Researchers can tap the CIPHER library for computable inputs derived from complex health data, such as phenotypes for diseases and clinical conditions. The library generates the data through the ORNL’s compute facilities and expertise.

According to Sumitra Muralidhar, director of the VA Million Veteran Program (CIPHER’s lead sponsor), the platform “has revolutionized” researchers’ use of EHR data with its standardized and streamlined approach that allows a head start in health research.

The VA has previously undertaken EHR modernization efforts, which engaged private industry, to improve clinical outcomes for members of military service branches.

VA Taps Electronic Health Information System for Research to Help Improve Clinical Care

Attend the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Healthcare Summit in December for all of the latest updates on U.S. healthcare technology.

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