SSA Information Chiefs to Prioritize Data-Driven & Customer-Centric Plans in New IT Strategy
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SSA Information Chiefs to Prioritize Data-Driven & Customer-Centric Plans in New IT Strategy

The Social Security Administration intends to launch a new IT strategic plan that prioritizes customer-centric and data-driven initiatives, according to the agency’s information and data officials. 

In an interview with Federal News Network, SSA Deputy Chief Information Officer Patrick Newbold and Chief Data Officer Rob King discussed how they are collaborating to bolster information availability, quality, security and usability based on progress from their strategy over the past 5 years.

Newbold stated that the new plan aims to digitize and reduce paper-based information and processing, and to improve employee experience by enhancing access to data needed to support their customers.

He added that the agency is looking into its applications programming interface platforms to optimize the use of both legacy and new systems. As part of their API-first strategy, SSA will expose data at the application level to expedite digital modernization.

King explained that they are analyzing information for an “apples-to-apples” comparison with the business community, stakeholders and policymakers.

“We’re defining our data with the metadata so we know where our data lives and on what systems. We know how it feeds business processes and then we can bring it together to have that ‘apples-to-apples’ data. Then we can put it into the various pipelines that we can then use to feed the digital strategy as well as advanced decision making and unified decision making and reporting,” King explained.

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Avril Haines: Ukraine Needs More Military, Economic Aid From Allies
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Avril Haines: Ukraine Needs More Military, Economic Aid From Allies

Avril Haines, director of national intelligence and a two-time Wash100 awardee, called the Russia-Ukraine war a “grinding conflict” that will require Western allies to continue to provide Kyiv with security assistance for it to win on the battlefield, CNBC said Sunday.

“It’s not a stalemate but really, a grinding conflict where quite literally, we’re talking about hundreds of meters being fought over in the context of the frontlines,” Haines said during a panel discussion at a forum.

“It will be extremely important for Ukraine to receive essential military assistance and economic assistance moving forward in order for them to be able to continue to manage what they have been heroically doing,” she added.

According to U.S. Defense Secretary and two-time Wash100 Award winner Lloyd Austin, Ukraine is set to receive $2.5 billion worth of U.S. military equipment, bringing U.S. security assistance to the Eastern European country to more than $26 billion since the start of the current administration.

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CACI Books $284M NSA Contract for Systems Engineering Support; John Mengucci Quoted
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CACI Books $284M NSA Contract for Systems Engineering Support; John Mengucci Quoted

CACI has won a potential $284 million, single-award prime contract from the National Security Agency.

Under the five-year award, CACI is expected to provide the agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate with mission knowledge and systems engineering assistance, the company announced from Reston, Virginia on Monday.

“This award reflects CACI’s ongoing commitment to support the NSA’s critical missions. We appreciate the NSA’s trust and confidence in our ability to find the right people with the right skills to protect these systems against an ever changing range of threats and to bring engineering solutions to reality,” said John Mengucci, president and CEO of CACI and a three-time Wash100 Award recipient.

CACI’s responsibilities under the contract are intended to modernize NSA’s enterprise-wide systems engineering practices to support critical national security missions.

The company has previously worked with NSA. In April of 2021, CACI received a $447 million award from the agency to deliver process and mission technology to support signals intelligence and cybersecurity initiatives.

CACI Books $284M NSA Contract for Systems Engineering Support; John Mengucci Quoted

CACI is sponsoring GovCon Wire’s 3rd Annual AF IT Modernization and Transformation Forum on March 21, which will connect IT leaders from the Air Force and industry to discuss current challenges and priorities shaping the future of Air Force IT.

To learn more and register to attend, please visit GovCon Wire’s events page.

White House Introduces Strategy to Measure Economic Value of Natural Resources
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White House Introduces Strategy to Measure Economic Value of Natural Resources

The Biden administration has unveiled a national strategy to develop a thorough set of statistics to capture the economic value of natural assets, such as animals, land, minerals, water and plants.

The National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions aims to include natural capital in the national economic accounting system to organize data that enable measurement of the quantity and value of the nation’s natural assets, the White House said Thursday. 

As part of the multi-year effort, the administration will use existing authorities and build on ongoing natural capital measurement efforts to better establish the role of nature in long-term economic growth forecasts.

An interagency working group led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Commerce was responsible for creating the strategy.

OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and OMB Director Shalanda Young Clearly said in a letter introducing the report that quantifying the value of natural capital is aimed to result in precise economic growth forecasts and provide a broader view of economic progress.

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Air Force Revamps Application for Source Selection Info Validation
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Air Force Revamps Application for Source Selection Info Validation

The U.S. Air Force has modernized a 20-year-old application used by all major air commands to process and communicate source selection evaluation data across 32 bases.

Teams utilize EZ Source for all unclassified competitive acquisitions worth $100 and above as required by the Air Force Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement MP5315.3, the service branch said Thursday.

The application modernization initiative covers an updated user interface, cloud migration and automated DD2875 process. Advanced member security controls as well as procedural source selection information validation have also been installed.

The platform is estimated to support over $239 billion in acquisitions spanning the Air Force and the Defense Health Agency.

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GAO: Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy Needed to Protect Assets, Critical Infrastructure
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GAO: Comprehensive Cybersecurity Strategy Needed to Protect Assets, Critical Infrastructure

The Government Accountability Office said in a new report that the federal government must establish a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to protect assets and critical infrastructure from state-sponsored cyberattacks.

GAO reiterated the importance of fully implementing the 335 public recommendations it has made on developing a comprehensive strategy since 2010 and noted that about 190 of them have not been executed as of December 2022.

“Until these are fully implemented, federal agencies will be more limited in their ability to protect private and sensitive data entrusted to them,” the report states. 

According to the government watchdog, the 2018 National Cyber Strategy and the National Security Council’s 2019 Implementation Plan did not fully address the desirable characteristics of national strategies in terms of problem definition and risk assessment, goals and performance measures and resources and investments.

GAO recommends that the National Security Council collaborate with partner agencies to update cybersecurity strategy documents to address said characteristics.

To boost the nation’s cyber defenses, the federal government must also mitigate global supply chain risks, address the cyber skills gaps and ensure the security of emerging technologies, per the report.

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OMB Updates Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program
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OMB Updates Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program

The Office of Management and Budget has issued a memorandum announcing the modernization of the Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting program as part of efforts to reflect best practices in modern learning and continuous professional growth. It is the first major revision to the program in nearly a decade.

The FAC-C (Professional) program is set to take effect on Feb. 1, and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at OMB expects the new framework to help foster training and development requirements for contracting officials in civilian agencies, according to the memo signed by Lesley Field, deputy administrator for federal procurement policy at OMB.

FAC-C (Professional) seeks to implement a streamlined single-level professional certification, advance equity and upward opportunity within the Department of Defense, incorporate a virtual instructor-led learning approach and integrate American National Standards Institute-accredited contracting competencies.

According to the memo, new hires will comply with the FAC-C (Professional) requirements and existing employees certified at Levels I, II or III of the legacy FAC-C program will get automatic certification under the new framework.

OFPP said the updated certification program will apply to all executive agencies, except DOD.

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RAND Report Highlights Need for Software Upgrades to USAF’s Electronic Warfare Integrated Reprogramming
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RAND Report Highlights Need for Software Upgrades to USAF’s Electronic Warfare Integrated Reprogramming

A tetralogy of case studies conducted by RAND Corp. implied the need for the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its electronic warfare integrated reprogramming enterprise in order to respond more quickly to adversary threats in the electromagnetic spectrum.

The research report urged the service branch to update its software architecture to improve existing EWIR enterprise despite transitioning to cognitive electronic warfare, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning.

RAND found that electronic warfare–related software reprogramming needs to process intelligence in a matter of seconds or minutes to ensure effective response to advanced threats.

The nonprofit policy group recommended containerized microservices to help accelerate reprogramming speed and newer software deployment architectures to support cognitive electronic warfare algorithms. Aircraft missions should also have better computing and connectivity for rapid data transmission and file updates in theater, RAND posited.

Aside from technology refinements and personnel development, USAF policies should be amended to improve data collection, access, classification, integration and standardization, the research team said.

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Sandy Radesky Named CISA Associate Director of Vulnerability Management
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Sandy Radesky Named CISA Associate Director of Vulnerability Management

Sandy Radesky, former deputy command information officer for U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, has been appointed associate director of vulnerability management at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The U.S. Air Force veteran brings to the role more than two decades of experience in cyber operations, information security, threat detection and response and vulnerability management, CISA said in a LinkedIn post published Thursday.

In her most recent role, Radesky oversaw efforts to position FLTCYBERCOM as the central operating authority for the U.S. Navy’s networks.

Radesky also served as director of information and technology and analytics for the national COVID-19 response effort of the Countermeasures Acceleration Group, where she helped streamline the distribution of vaccines and therapeutics across the country.

Before joining the Navy, she was deputy director of operations at Joint Force Headquarters Department of Defense Information Network responsible for overseeing operational-level command and control and cyberspace operations.

Radesky also held various roles of increasing responsibility during her seven-year career at the Defense Information Systems Agency, including as head of the Global Operations Command Defensive Cyber Operations Security Center located at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

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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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