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US-UK Agreement to Advance Fully Networked Command, Control, Communications
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US-UK Agreement to Advance Fully Networked Command, Control, Communications

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.K. defense ministry have signed an agreement to collaborate on efforts to enhance command and control capabilities.

A statement of intent between DOD and the British defense ministry will advance the development of Fully Networked Command, Control and Communications, a “pathfinder” capability that seeks to achieve collaborative C2 between the two countries through common data, principles, capabilities and interface standards, the Pentagon said Thursday.

FNC3 seeks to advance interoperability to help U.S. and U.K. forces, other allies and mission partners facilitate information sharing for faster decision-making.

Lt. Gen. Mary O’Brien, director of the Joint Staff J6, and Lt. Gen. Tom Copinger-Symes, deputy commander of the U.K. Strategic Command, signed the FNC3 SOI on Nov. 4.

According to DOD, the Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative of the U.S. and Multi-Domain Integration Change Program of the U.K. play a key role in advancing collaborative C2.

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Treasury Recommends Additional Oversight for Bank-Fintech Relationships to Address Market Risks
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Treasury Recommends Additional Oversight for Bank-Fintech Relationships to Address Market Risks

The Department of the Treasury has released a new report on the impact of new entrant non-bank firms on competition in consumer finance markets and provided recommendations on how to address risks associated with the emergence of new financial technology companies.

In the report, Treasury found that fintech firms are creating new risks to market integrity and recommended that regulators develop “a clear and consistently applied supervisory framework” to oversee relationships between banks and fintech companies.

The report also recommended that a bank-fintech relationship that offers consumer financial services provided by an insured depository institution comply with the regulatory requirements applicable to the IDI.

Treasury also noted that fintech firms are presenting risks to consumer protection and data privacy and suggested that regulators provide robust supervision of bank-fintech lending relationships.

Janet Yellen, secretary of Treasury, said that the entrance of non-bank companies has boosted competition and innovation in the consumer finance markets but it does not “come without additional risks to consumer protection and market integrity.”

“This report lays out actions that would maintain fair, transparent, and competitive markets while encouraging responsible innovation that benefits consumers,” Yellen continued.

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DARPA Triage Challenge to Promote Tech Use in Medical Response to Mass Casualty Incidents
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DARPA Triage Challenge to Promote Tech Use in Medical Response to Mass Casualty Incidents

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a three-year competition focused on improving emergency medical response in military and civilian mass casualty incidents.

The DARPA Triage Challenge aims to drive innovation that can aid medical personnel in the prioritization and acceleration of care in the case of MCI, the agency said Wednesday.

The $7 million challenge will be divided into primary triage-real world, primary triage-virtual, and secondary triage segments, each with a duration of 12 months. Some of the participants will be self-funded, others will be financed by DARPA and all teams can join one or multiple competitions.

The agency expects to see the use of technologies that can help identify casualties requiring the most urgent treatment and subsequently predict whether immediate lifesaving interventions are necessary. The competitors may use sensors, unmanned aircraft vehicles, algorithms and real-time data analytics.

“The DARPA Triage Challenge will gather communities with expertise in triage and emergency medical response, tactical combat casualty care, trauma physiology and a diverse array of physiological signatures and sensor and algorithm technologies that will continue to deliver innovative technologies that support medical responders beyond the Challenge,” explained U.S. Navy Commander and DTC Program Manager Jean-Paul Chretien.

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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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