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Senators Push Measure to Expand Federal Procurement Ban to Chinese Chipmakers
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Senators Push Measure to Expand Federal Procurement Ban to Chinese Chipmakers

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, are working to include in the final version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act an amendment that would block federal government agencies from doing business with Chinese semiconductor companies, Politico reported Thursday.

Sources said Schumer and Cornyn were able to have their proposed measure added to the Senate NDAA in October as part of the managers package and are working with their colleagues to facilitate the inclusion of their proposal in the final defense policy bill.

According to the report, the proposal from the two lawmakers seeks to expand Section 889 of the FY 2019 NDAA, which prohibits agencies from buying telecommunications and video surveillance equipment and services produced by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

Defense One reported that the proposed amendment, Section 5871, would broaden Section 889 provisions by precluding the federal government from using or procuring products containing chips made by China-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. or SMIC, Yangtze Memory Technologies and ChangXin Memory Technologies.

The language, which would only take effect three years after the provision becomes law, would provide the secretary of the Department of Defense the option to extend the prohibition to other Chinese chipmakers of concern.

The proposed measure from Cornyn and Schumer would also encourage government contractors to put an end to the use of semiconductors produced by the listed Chinese companies in any “substantial or essential” components of their platforms, according to the report.

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Alejandro Mayorkas Says Recent APT Activity Considered Major Cyber Incident
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Alejandro Mayorkas Says Recent APT Activity Considered Major Cyber Incident

Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a previous Wash100 awardee, said the suspected Iranian government-sponsored advanced persistent threat activity revealed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI can be considered a major cyber incident.

Mayorkas was responding to Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, when asked if the identified APT activity would be considered under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act reauthorization, HSGAC said Thursday.

In a hearing held a day after the cybersecurity advisory was released, Portman questioned Mayorkas regarding the identity of the compromised federal civilian executive branch organization and whether the cyber threat actors have been removed from the federal networks.

Mayorkas declined to provide any further detail about the reported incident.

CISA holds that the Iranian government exploited the Log4Shell remote code execution vulnerability to install crypto mining software.

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Overcoming Setbacks Through Growth: Takeaways from the 2022 Baird Government & Defense Conference
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Overcoming Setbacks Through Growth: Takeaways from the 2022 Baird Government & Defense Conference

The 2022 edition of Baird’s annual Government & Defense Conference brought together leaders from top public and private companies that do business with the federal sector, as well as government officials and representatives from the hosting financial company to present to an audience of nearly 1,400.

The onlookers were both remote through virtual means and present in-person at the Ritz Carlton in McLean, Virginia on Thursday as the slate of speakers, which included Wash100 Award winners John Mengucci of CACI International, Byron Bright of KBR, Jonathan Moneymaker of BlueHalo and Tony Frazier of Maxar, discussed the current climate of the government contracting industry, trends in finance and strategic opportunities in mergers and acquisitions, among other subjects.

In his midmorning discussion with Baird Managing Director and Co-head of Government & Defense Investment Banking Practice John Song, the DOD Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord shared sobering thoughts about the United States’ current competitions with “near-peer adversaries” China and Russia.

“China is modernizing faster than we are,” McCord conceded, though he nonetheless submitted that the capabilities, experience and strength of the U.S. is superior to both aforementioned nations. McCord went on to impress upon Song the importance and centrality of Joint All Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, as a strategy for the country in its future fights while noting that in terms of joint force approaches, “sensor to decision maker is as important as sensor to shooter.” (Song and McCord are both also Wash100 Award recipients.)

Later on, HawkEye 360 CEO John Serafini provided insights into how his geospatial analytics company, which uses radio frequency signal location data culled from satellites, has shaped its outlook and market outreach. Serafini told Baird Senior Research Analyst Peter Arment that a company can’t effectively “minor in government sales…you’re either all in or get out.”

Serafini explained that if an enterprise tries to truly divide its time between government and commercial industry customers, it can’t serve either entity to a satisfying degree. According to the CEO, HawkEye primarily works with defense, intelligence and national security clientele and is considered somewhere between a government contractor and a Silicon Valley-style technology start-up.

During a panel entitled Digital Transformation: Transforming Government, various high-level executives, including Mark Lee of ICF and Seán Morris of Deloitte, discussed mechanisms for helping the government evolve and in some cases tear down its legacy systems. NetImpact Strategies CEO and Wash100 Award winner “PV” Puvvada commented that “government as well as industry needs to be digitally dexterous” and went on to underline the importance of human-centered design, user experience and human experience in crafting technological systems.

After lunch, KBR Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Mark Sopp joined his colleague, the company’s Government Solutions President Byron Bright to give the audience a view into the company’s recent history and deal-making.

Bright, who is a multiple-time Wash100 Award recipient, repeatedly emphasized how much the long-running organization has changed over the last eight years, stating that the company is now at the level of a prime contractor. Sopp described that the company is projects-based (rather than capability- or solution-based) and remarked that while many organizations are digitally focused and then attempt to operationalize from there, KBR works the other way around.

In consideration of its progress since 2014, Bright cited the company’s growth through a series of ambitious acquisitions as well as its focus on sustainability and environmental projects.

“We feel like we were doing sustainability before it was cool,” Bright quipped, while Sopp added that the company is attempting to “help the government operationalize in a more environmentally sustainable way.”

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Sentar Licensed to Employ Idaho National Lab’s Methodology for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
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Sentar Licensed to Employ Idaho National Lab’s Methodology for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Sentar has secured the license to use Idaho National Laboratory’s consequence-driven cyber-informed engineering process to enhance its cybersecurity services to government clients.

The partnership with INL allows Sentar to expand its real-time operational technology monitoring capabilities, the Huntsville, Alabama-based information technology services company said Tuesday.

As the first Department of Defense contractor to gain rights to the patented CCE methodology, Sentar intends to use the process to advance its cyber terrain mapping and other services to protect critical U.S. infrastructure.

CCE is considered as the initial phase of MissionValor, a threat intelligence and pattern analytics project created by the Department of Defense under the Small Business Innovation Research program. 

“[The CCE process] provides a starting point for the identification of mission-essential tasks and maps critical operational technology capabilities to assets and networks to mitigate high-consequence events,” Sentar Vice President Vincent Mihalik commented.

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Global Military Products to Stand Up Explosive Compound Under Navy OTA
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Global Military Products to Stand Up Explosive Compound Under Navy OTA

Global Military Products, a Florida-based veteran-owned small business, has inked an other transaction agreement with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division to develop a prototype production facility for an explosive substance called triaminotrinitrobenzene.

The TATB pilot facility is targeted to enhance the strategic systems of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Defense Department in support of the Naval Energetic Systems and Technologies program, NSWC IHD said Wednesday.

Ashley Johnson, technical director at NSWC IHD, explained that the OTA “allows for facility upgrades to ensure critical energetics are delivered to the warfighter and other customers.”

Two facilities are expected to undergo renovation to serve as TATB and TATB-based plastic bonded explosives production sites. The effort is scheduled to run for four years.

34 SBIR Projects Secure USDA Funding; Chavonda Jacobs-Young Quoted
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34 SBIR Projects Secure USDA Funding; Chavonda Jacobs-Young Quoted

34 scientific research endeavors by small businesses across the U.S. were awarded $21.6 million from the Agriculture Department to evolve and streamline key agricultural processes and technology.

The effort is a function of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Small Business Innovation Research program and the funding is set to enable proposals on topics ranging from food science and plant production and protection, to aquaculture and natural resources conservation, USDA said Wednesday.

Among the small businesses to receive funding include New York-based Hangar Alpha, whose team has devised real-time anticipatory tools for fire behavior and will utilize funding to develop and commercially offer these predictive fire analytics technologies for the public sector.

“This latest investment strengthens federal research and development support for small businesses, including women- and minority-owned businesses and enhances USDA’s efforts to rapidly scale innovation across the food supply chain,” commented USDA Chief Scientist Chavonda Jacobs-Young.

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CISA: Iranian-Backed Threat Actors Exploit Log4Shell Vulnerability to Compromise FEBC Network
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CISA: Iranian-Backed Threat Actors Exploit Log4Shell Vulnerability to Compromise FEBC Network

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said suspected advanced persistent threat actors related to the Iranian government exploited the Log4Shell remote code execution vulnerability to compromise the network of a federal civilian executive branch organization.

CISA said Wednesday it released an advisory outlining indicators of compromise collected from the investigation of the suspected APT activity that targeted an unpatched VMware Horizon server to install crypto mining software.

The agency identified the APT activity on the organization’s network using the EINSTEIN intrusion detection system and found IOCs in its server.

From mid-June through mid-July, CISA conducted an incident response engagement and observed that the threat actors installed XMRig crypto mining software, moved to the domain controller, compromised credentials and distributed Ngrok reverse proxies across several hosts.

CISA unveiled the cybersecurity advisory in collaboration with the FBI to help network defenders detect and implement appropriate measures against related compromises.

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OMB Asks Congress for $38B More in Funds for Ukraine Assistance
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OMB Asks Congress for $38B More in Funds for Ukraine Assistance

The Office of Management and Budget is calling on Congress to provide Ukraine with $38 billion in additional funding to help the European country defend itself against Russian invasion.

“We are urging the Congress to provide additional appropriations to ensure Ukraine has the funding, weapons and support it needs to defend itself and that vulnerable people continue to receive lifesaving aid,” OMB Director Shalanda Young wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Tuesday.

Defense News reported the White House is requesting $38 billion in additional funds for Ukraine.

The request for Ukraine aid includes $21.7 billion in security assistance; $14.5 billion for direct financial support to the government of Ukraine and humanitarian support; and $900 million in funds for the Department of Health and Human Services to provide health care assistance to Ukrainian parolees.

Through the letter, Young presented the president’s fiscal year 2023 emergency supplementary funding request, which also seeks additional funds for disaster response and COVID-19 relief efforts.

The White House is urging Congress to address those three critical funding requirements as lawmakers work to reach a bipartisan agreement to fund government operations for the rest of FY 2023 before a stopgap measure expires on Dec. 16.

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DOE Funds 10 EV Battery Recycling Tech Development Projects; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE Funds 10 EV Battery Recycling Tech Development Projects; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

The Department of Energy will allocate $74 million in funding to support 10 projects that will develop new technologies and processes to recycle and reuse batteries of electric vehicles.

As part of a $7 billion investment from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the projects are meant to strengthen the country’s battery supply chain, DOE said Wednesday.

To do so, reportedly the projects will focus on advanced materials separation and reintegration for lithium-ion battery recycling and second life scale-up demonstration projects.

Recipients of the award are:

  • American Battery Technology Co.
  • Cirba Solutions
  • Element Energy
  • Michigan Technological University
  • Princeton NuEnergy
  • RePurpose Energy
  • Smartville
  • Tennessee Technological University
  • University of Alabama
  • University of California San Diego

“Recycling advanced batteries presents an enormous opportunity for America to support the creation of a secure and resilient domestic battery supply chain to reach our clean energy and transportation future,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. 

Granholm noted that the investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law help advance cross-sector collaboration that will drive technological breakthroughs and reduce reliance on other countries to meet clean energy goals.

DARPA Launches Research Program on Behavioral Health Mechanisms
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DARPA Launches Research Program on Behavioral Health Mechanisms

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting research proposals focused on neurobehavioral protective factors and wellbeing as part of a Defense Sciences Office-led program aimed at enhancing mental health of military service members.

The STRENGTHEN program, or Strengthening Resilient Emotions and Nimble Cognition Through Engineering Neuroplasticity effort, seeks to address traumatic stress effects that cause behavioral health disorders and suicidality among warfighters, DARPA said Tuesday.

Optimizing the brain circuits responsible for cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation by building on neuroscience and clinical practice advances is the target of the initiative. It aligns with one of the Department of Defense’s top priorities: suicide prevention.

“Current mental health intervention approaches rely on diagnostic categories based on descriptive symptoms rather than a mechanistic understanding of brain network dysfunction causing those symptoms,” said Dr. Greg Witkop, a former Army surgeon who manages the STRENGTHEN program in DSO. “By identifying and optimizing the brain networks associated with cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation, STRENGTHEN seeks to heal — and prevent — changes in the brain networks caused by traumatic stress,” he added.

Developing CF and ER network models and designing hybrid interventions for inducing neuroplastic change in functional connectivity are STRENGTHEN’s top goals. Interested parties are welcome to join the program proposers day on Friday to learn more about the initiative.

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