U.S. Air Forces Central and George Mason University have entered into a cooperative research and development agreement to jointly develop warfighter mission training, education and research programs.

Through the partnership, airmen from the Ninth Air Force will gain access to academic programs offered through Mason’s School of Business and College of Engineering and Computing, USAFCENT said Monday.

The CRADA covers the development of applied research and development programs with the Volgenau School of Engineering’s national security and defense teams at Mason’s Rapid Prototyping Research Center.

In addition, Mason’s Institute for Digital Innovation will coordinate efforts to advance digital transformation initiatives supporting warfighting training programs.

USAFCENT formed a formal partnership with Mason in 2022 to deliver customized data-driven decision-making and senior leadership programs developed by the latter’s School of Business faculty and executive development teams, according to Lt. Col. Chaz LeDeatte, chief technology and data officer at USAFCENT.

The partnership has since expanded to include research programs in multiple disciplines including digital transformation, applied research in systems engineering and integration, program management, innovation and creativity and military transition of advanced technologies.

The Department of Commerce introduced a new online resource Monday providing information on how companies can self-certify compliance with a data privacy framework between the United States and the European Union.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the DPF program website serves as a one-stop shop for private sector organizations to sign up and learn about the advantages of participation.

The site, managed by the International Trade Administration, went live one week after the European Commission affirmed the adequacy of the federal government’s personal information sharing protection measures under the newly adopted framework.

“Now, businesses – large and small – will be able to access a streamlined and affordable mechanism to transfer data between our jurisdictions,” Raimondo remarked.

The framework outlines updated binding safeguards meant to address European Court of Justice concerns such as the extent of EU data access by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Earlier this month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed the intelligence community’s adoption of regulations pursuant to President Joe Biden’s executive order on signals intelligence-gathering activity.

The National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have released the second part of a two-part series to assess the benefits and risks associated with 5G network slicing.

NSA said Monday the document outlines security considerations for the design, implementation, monitoring and maintenance of a hardened 5G network slice and identifies industry best practices to mitigate perceived risks against the network architecture.

The industry-recognized practices seek to address the threat vectors identified in the first paper published by the Enduring Security Framework, a cross-sector working group led by NSA and CISA.

ESF defines a network slice as “an end-to-end logical network that provides specific network capabilities and characteristics for a user” and enables infrastructure providers to allocate network resources for different use cases.

“This document marks an initial stride in capturing the current, but evolving, landscape of network slicing, and serves as a catalyst for initiating meaningful conversations surrounding the potential use cases for network slicing,” said Lauren Wyble, technical director for network infrastructure security at NSA.

According to Barry Duplantis, vice president and general manager of Mattermost’s North America public sector arm, federal agencies have begun to understand that cybersecurity is not just about combating each individual attack, but also establishing all-around “digital sovereignty.”

To achieve this type of digital infrastructure, a self-hosted technical collaboration platform is crucial, and ensuring that it stays secure requires strong incident anticipation and response, Duplantis wrote in a piece published to Federal News Network on Monday.

“Today, digital sovereignty is an imperative for all government organizations,” said Duplantis, who emphasized its importance in protecting the privacy of citizens and employees, U.S. intellectual property and international policy data that could result in geopolitical consequences if leaked.

Though many organizations have harnessed multi-cloud environments and Software-as-a-Service offerings, Duplantis noted that these approaches to cloud computing may not fit the needs of entities hosting sensitive data – which he said could be met with a self-hosted collaboration platform.

“A self-hosted collaboration platform enables you to securely collaborate in real time, with lower risk of compromise,” he said.

If the platform is open source, users will also be able to tailor its security settings to match the correct Department of Defense impact levels, said Duplantis.

An effective collaboration platform should also support the establishment of specific channels, the automation of incident-response workflows and auditability, he added.

Digital sovereignty is also built on strong incident response. The process should entail swift identification, investigation and remediation of any cyber threats or attacks, he said.

“Achieving that goal requires a complete audit trail of the incident itself and of the incident response,” Duplantis said. “A retrospective of incident response enables you to benefit from lessons learned to achieve continual improvements.”

Defining and following best practices for incident response audits is another critical piece of reaching digital sovereignty. According to Duplantis, identifying audit objectives, steps and standards up front will boost the relevance of the information collected for later use.

“Of course, incident management begins long before an incident occurs. You need the right people to review the right information at the right time to spot potential problems early and accurately,” said Duplantis.

He added that pinpointing any issues early in the incident management could help organizations discover trends that may improve future investigations.