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DOD’s Randy Resnick on Zero Trust Experiment with Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability Contract Awardees
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DOD’s Randy Resnick on Zero Trust Experiment with Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability Contract Awardees

Randy Resnick, director of the Department of Defense’s Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office, said starting this spring, National Security Agency red-team hackers will test zero trust security by launching attacks on systems running on cloud platforms of Amazon Web Services, Oracle, Microsoft and Google, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

The simulation will give participants a chance to observe a “realistic adversary attack [to] determine whether or not the red teams could get in and exploit data,” Resnick said during a webcast.

“That’s going to give us a really good feel on whether or not these zero trust overlays are implemented correctly,” he added.

In December, AWS, Oracle, Google and Microsoft won positions on the potential $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract, which will enable DOD to directly procure enterprisewide cloud service offerings from commercial service providers across all classification levels and security domains.

Resnick said his office expects the test to provide a way for recommending to the Pentagon whether or not it could implement zero trust in the cloud.

“If…we come to the conclusion that in fact it can be done, it would be absolutely revolutionary,” he added.

According to the report, the test will serve as an “independent” experiment to determine how cloud service providers can quickly implement zero trust standards set by Resnick’s office.

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Onspring GovCloud GRC Software Receives FedRAMP In Process Designation
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Onspring GovCloud GRC Software Receives FedRAMP In Process Designation

No-code, cloud-based governance, risk and compliance software provider Onspring has received FedRAMP In Process designation for its GovCloud program.

This achievement allows government agencies to begin solicitations with Onspring and represents a key step in the process of securing FedRAMP authorization, the Overland Park, Kansas-based organization announced on Thursday.

“For more than 10 years, Onspring has successfully served the commercial markets’ needs and is now ready to help federal agencies safely automate their complex governance, risk and compliance programs in the cloud,” said Nichole Windholz, director of cybersecurity at Onspring.

As the public sector embraces cloud-based software to modernize and enhance agility, efficiency and time savings, Onspring anticipates that its GovCloud program will be welcomed as there are currently only a handful of FedRAMP authorized cloud GRC software offerings on the market.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, a current client that uses the program to manage NERC compliance and block violations that may result in penalty costs, will sponsor Onspring GovCloud during the next stage of FedRAMP authorization.

“We chose Onspring GovCloud because of its ability to map and report on controls with real-time compliance tracking of ‘NERC-CIP’ standards in a FedRAMP Authorized environment,” said David Abdalla, senior program manager for TVA.

Earlier this month, Onspring received a U.S. patent for its Process Automation Platform, which serves as the foundation for the company’s GRC technology. The platform was selected for its method of using a document database to edit applications without restructuring the database.

In August of last year, Onspring released version 23.0 of its GRC software, which upgraded its dashboards, reports, surveys and workflows and added new filtering options.

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Janet Yellen: Treasury Adopts ‘Extraordinary Measures’ as US Hits Debt Limit
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Janet Yellen: Treasury Adopts ‘Extraordinary Measures’ as US Hits Debt Limit

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed Congress through a letter that her department started implementing “extraordinary measures” after the U.S. government reached its statutory debt limit of $31.4 trillion on Thursday.

Yellen told congressional leaders in the Thursday letter that the Department of the Treasury will suspend investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund from Thursday through June 5.

“By law, the CSRDF and the PSRHBF will be made whole once the debt limit is increased or suspended. Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by these actions,” she wrote in the letter.

“I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen added.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre cited the need for bipartisan cooperation in Congress to address the debt ceiling during a press briefing Wednesday.

“Our outreach is deliberate to ensure Congress knows that the debt ceiling must be addressed, again, without conditions,” Jean-Pierre said.

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Air Force Research Lab Awards $90M Tactical Autonomy R&D Project
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Air Force Research Lab Awards $90M Tactical Autonomy R&D Project

The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded Howard University a five-year, $90 million contract to set up a center and lead an academic consortium that will conduct tactical autonomy studies.

AFRL received four proposals for the establishment of a historically Black university-led research hub to carry out the project aimed at identifying practical applications of autonomous technology, the Department of Defense said Thursday.

The lab is obligating $2.95 million for the first task order under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract.

R&D efforts will occur at Howard University’s Washington, D.C., facility and campuses run by members of the consortium.

The award resulted from a broad agency announcement published by the Air Force Office of the Chief Scientist on SAM.gov in September 2022.

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NSA Releases Security Guidance for IPv6 Implementation
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NSA Releases Security Guidance for IPv6 Implementation

The National Security Agency has released security guidance to help the Department of Defense and other system administrators implement the latest version of the Internet Protocol.

NSA said Wednesday the IPv6 Security Guidance outlines a set of recommendations on how DOD and other federal organizations can maintain awareness of and prevent potential security concerns as they transition to the next-generation protocol from the legacy IPv4 networks.

According to the agency, networks new to the protocol lack maturity in IPv6 configurations and tools and devices that run on IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously have an increased attack surface.

“The Department of Defense will incrementally transition from IPv4 to IPv6 over the next few years and many DoD networks will be dual-stacked,” said Neal Ziring, cybersecurity technical director at NSA.

To address emerging security issues, NSA recommends that organizations assign IPv6 addresses to a host via a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 6 server; avoid tunnels to reduce complexity and the attack surface; utilize cybersecurity mechanisms that support both IPv4 and IPv6; and provide appropriate and sufficient training and education to network administrators.

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DIU Seeks Commercial Technologies for Virtual Jet Pilot Training
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DIU Seeks Commercial Technologies for Virtual Jet Pilot Training

The Defense Innovation Unit has posted a commercial solutions opening for immersive training technologies designed to help the Department of Defense train next-generation jet pilots.

DIU said it is looking for lightweight and agile commercial platforms that are equipped to support synthetic training environments and extended reality technology in support of the T-38C jet trainer and other existing tactical trainer aircraft of the U.S. Air Force.

DOD will prototype technologies in two parallel lines of effort, with the first providing a new mid-tier, mixed-reality training device and the second delivering an STE that supports fighter/bomber fundamentals syllabus events.

The resulting technologies will be used as part of a new Pilot Training Transformation course on FBF.

As part of the initiative, DOD also plans to prototype training tools such as artificial intelligence-powered instructional tools, remote instruction capabilities, augmented reality briefing and debriefing capabilities, student cognitive workload and performance monitoring systems.

Interested companies may submit their proposals until Jan. 23.

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SBA’s Isabella Casillas Guzman: Small Business Boom Continued in 2022
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SBA’s Isabella Casillas Guzman: Small Business Boom Continued in 2022

Isabella Casillas Guzman, administrator of the Small Business Administration, said new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that a record pace of small business applications continued in 2022.

“Since the start of this administration, small business applications reached a high of 10.5 million, the most in any two years in our nation’s history,” Guzman said in a statement published Wednesday.

She noted that the new Census data reflects how the current administration’s investment in economic recovery enabled U.S. entrepreneurs to establish new businesses.

“The SBA and the Biden-Harris Administration continue to retool vital federal small business support programs and services to expand access to capital, provide much-needed trusted networks for technical assistance and training, and help America’s entrepreneurs seek new revenue opportunities from transformational legislation including the President’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,” Guzman added.

According to the Census Bureau, there were 417,055 business applications filed for December 2022, a drop of 0.3 percent from the previous month.

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Victor LaGroon Appointed 1st Chief Diversity Officer at VA
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Victor LaGroon Appointed 1st Chief Diversity Officer at VA

Victor LaGroon, a U.S. Army veteran, has been named the first chief diversity officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where he is responsible for developing strategy and overseeing its inclusive, diversity, equity and access initiatives.

VA said Tuesday LaGroon worked as director of strategic partnerships and alliances for the health equity division within the Department of Population Sciences at City of Hope prior to joining the agency.

Now, the VA official has oversight of I-DEA programs and policies, facilitating their department-wide creation, adoption and execution to support agency strategic priorities.

LaGroon’s career includes time with the Black Veterans Empowerment Council as chairman, GoCivic Chicago as member of its board of directors, Chicago’s VA Office as director and Army as intelligence analyst.

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6 Companies to Use DOE Supercomputers for Clean Energy Tech Manufacturing
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6 Companies to Use DOE Supercomputers for Clean Energy Tech Manufacturing

Six U.S.-based clean energy technology companies have been selected to receive funding to use the Department of Energy’s network of supercomputers to optimize their manufacturing processes and boost product development.

Awardees under the High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing program will access HPC facilities at DOE national laboratories and apply advanced modeling, simulation and data analysis to streamline the development of decarbonization technologies, DOE said Wednesday.

The awardees and their partner laboratories are: 

  • Allegheny Technologies and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
  • Danieli USA and National Renewable Energy Laboratory
  • Ford Motor Company and Sandia National Laboratory
  • M2X Energy and Argonne National Laboratory
  • Siemens and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Solar Turbines and Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The companies will receive $300,000 each — totaling $1.8 million for all six across the whole endeavor — and work on projects focusing on a range of topics, including enhancing the battery performance of electric vehicles and increasing the production of near-net shape mill-products to lower energy use and reduce carbon emissions.

HPC4Mfg is managed under the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation initiative and is funded by the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office.

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Daniel Bardenstein Announces Exit from CISA Post
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Daniel Bardenstein Announces Exit from CISA Post

Daniel Bardenstein is stepping down as chief of technology strategy and delivery at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

He announced his departure from CISA in a tweet Wednesday.

“I’ve gotten to work on incredibly meaningful and impactful projects, but a unique opportunity came up that was incredibly hard to turn down,” Bardenstein said in his Twitter post. He has not yet specified what his new pursuit entails.

He cited his involvement in advancing cross-sector cybersecurity performance goals, tech modernization efforts and initiatives related to industrial control systems and operational technology.

In December 2021, he joined CISA from the Defense Digital Service, where he was director of cybersecurity programs. He also served as a cybersecurity co-lead for Operation Warp Speed at the Department of Defense.

Bardenstein formerly served as a tech policy fellow at the Aspen Tech Policy Hub. He also held product management leadership roles at Exabeam and Palantir Technologies.

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