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DHS Unveils Cyber Safety Review Board Report on Log4j Vulnerability; Director Jen Easterly Quoted
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DHS Unveils Cyber Safety Review Board Report on Log4j Vulnerability; Director Jen Easterly Quoted

The Department of Homeland Security has issued the Cyber Safety Review Board’s inaugural report on the Log4j vulnerability discovered in December 2021.

The CSRB worked with nearly 80 organizations, software developers and other professionals to collect insights on Log4j and come up with recommendations to prevent and respond to future cyber incidents, DHS said Thursday.

According to the report, the vulnerability “remains deeply embedded in systems” and that the government and industry should advance the development and deployment of capabilities, automated frameworks and other tools that would help developers build secure software.

The report offers 19 recommendations classified into four categories: continued vigilance in addressing Log4j vulnerabilities; adoption of industry-accepted standards and practices for vulnerability management and security hygiene; development of a better software ecosystem; and advancement of technological and cultural shifts in support of the country’s digital security.

To advance a better software ecosystem, recommendations include improving software bill of materials tooling and adoptability and increasing investments in open source software security. 

“The CSRB is a remarkable public-private initiative that has produced an important blueprint for CISA – our nation’s civilian cyber defense agency – to meaningfully increase cybersecurity resilience and preparedness across our country,” said Jen Easterly, director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner.

“I look forward to implementing the CSRB’s impactful recommendations and thank the members for their time and thoughtful counsel,” added Easterly.

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NSA Report Outlines Levels of Hardware Assurance for Defense Microelectronics
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NSA Report Outlines Levels of Hardware Assurance for Defense Microelectronics

The National Security Agency has released a report providing guidance on characterizing threats to defense microelectronics.

The Cybersecurity Technical Report defines three levels of hardware assurance and outlines steps on how to implement them to protect custom microelectronic components used in Department of Defense systems, NSA said Thursday.

These custom microelectronic parts include field programmable gate arrays, application-specific integrated circuits and other components containing reprogrammable digital logic.

NSA’s Joint Federated Assurance Center identified the three levels of hardware assurance that DOD programs can apply to top-level systems and critical components. 

For the first level of assurance, essential defense capabilities will remain available during a system failure but subversion of a system can cause harm to U.S. property, personnel or interests.

Under LoA2, the failure of a system can cause serious harm to personnel or property and that essential operational capabilities may be degraded. Under LoA3, system failure can result in extremely grave consequences and interrupt DOD’s essential operational capabilities.

Once the appropriate level of assurance is determined, the customized microelectronics part is analyzed to identify potential threats to the manufacturing process, according to the document.

Threats are defined by cost and utility characteristics. Cost characteristics include access, technology and investment, while utility characteristics are targetability and value of effect.

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Commerce, DOD Secretaries Urge Congress to Pass Bill to Support Domestic Chip Producers
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Commerce, DOD Secretaries Urge Congress to Pass Bill to Support Domestic Chip Producers

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have called on congressional leaders to accelerate the passage of the Bipartisan Innovation Act to support and strengthen domestic chip manufacturing and counter competition from China. 

The two secretaries urged lawmakers to fully fund the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors in America Act or the CHIPS Act to reduce dependence on foreign-made chips, create jobs, boost domestic supply and free up billions of dollars for private investment.

“If these funds are not appropriated in the coming weeks, the United States will miss out on the current wave of semiconductor investment. Chip producers must make capital expenditure decisions now to meet the enormous increased demand,” Raimondo and Austin, a 2022 Wash100 Award, wrote in a Wednesday letter to House and Senate leaders.

Failure to act will prompt those manufacturers to expand in countries that are offering incentives, they added. Austin and Raimondo called semiconductor production an imperative for national security.

“Funding the CHIPS Act is critical to our national defense. Weapon systems employed on the battlefields of today and emerging technologies of tomorrow depend on our access to a steady, secure supply of microelectronics,” they wrote.

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Steve Cover Appointed Chief Technology Officer at CentralSquare Technologies; David Zolet Quoted
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Steve Cover Appointed Chief Technology Officer at CentralSquare Technologies; David Zolet Quoted

Career technology and software executive Steve Cover has joined the public sector-serving CentralSquare Technologies as its chief technology officer.

The Lake Mary, Florida-based company said Thursday that in his new role, Cover will identify ways to deliver product and customer value in agile software development through strategy.

Welcoming the new CTO, David Zolet, CEO of CentralSquare, commented that Cover arrives during a promising growth period for the company.

“Steve’s deep experience with designing and developing cutting-edge technology solutions will further drive innovation to solve our customers’ mission-critical challenges,” Zolet, who is a four-time Wash100 Award winner, added.

Cover will leverage nearly 30 years of career experience as CTO of CentralSquare. He has amassed significant experience in the technology industry, including 11 years as a development manager at Microsoft, senior vice president of information technology at UnitedHealth Group and vice president of technology at Horizon Software International.

Subsequently, Cover was executive vice president and principal consultant at LeadingAgile, where he led broad-scale development initiatives for clients such as an international IT business with more than 10,000 employees.

Before coming to CentralSquare, Cover occupied the position of vice president of human capital management engineering at Ultimate Kronos Group, where he was responsible for conceptualizing workflows for a large engineering company.

The executive’s specialties include establishing alignments between products and business strategy, performing agile transformation, administering software-as-a-service, designing software architecture and executing product modernization.

Comer’s appointment follows CentralSquare’s hire of three new members to its executive team in March, including Dara Brenner as chief product officer and Weston Helms as vice president of corporate development.

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Deltek Capitalizes on Productive Partnership with TIP Technologies Acquisition; Mike Corkery Quoted
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Deltek Capitalizes on Productive Partnership with TIP Technologies Acquisition; Mike Corkery Quoted

Deltek has formed a deal to acquire management services software company TIP Technologies, in a move aimed to result in a robust portfolio of offerings for the organizations’ aerospace and defense customers.

Specifically, the purchase of TIP Technologies will equip Deltek with quality management system and manufacturing execution system capabilities and help them serve government contracting organizations and engineer to order firms, the Herndon, Virginia-based company said Thursday.

The acquisition builds on an existing, ongoing collaboration between the two companies and is intended to “create a more effortless way for our customers to get the combined benefits of our collective solutions,” according to Mike Corkery, CEO and president of Deltek.

Corkery, who is a two-time recipient of the Wash100 Award, additionally stated that TIP Technologies’ QA and MES skill sets are well-matched to Deltek’s accounting, manufacturing and supply chain administration qualifications.

TIP Technologies has already successfully integrated its programs and tools with Deltek’s Costpoint platform.

The deal is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2022, barring certain conditions and criteria are met. The agreement stipulates that Deltek will assume ownership of TIP Technologies’ assets.

TIP Technologies is a Wisconsin-based business with an international reach. Their team introduced an integrated quality assurance software with a commercial, off-the-shelf strategy in the late 1980s and early 1990s that was considered ahead of its time. The acquired business already shares many clients with its buyer, including Qarbon Aerospace.

In May, Deltek and TIP Technologies completed a digital transformation project for Qarbon Aerospace, evolving the latter organization’s system architecture from a legacy solution SAP to Deltek Costpoint under the Project Bulldozer initiative.

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Bipartisan Legislation Looks to Increase Oversight of National Security Consulting Firms to Prevent Chinese, Russian Influence
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Bipartisan Legislation Looks to Increase Oversight of National Security Consulting Firms to Prevent Chinese, Russian Influence

Sens. Joni Ernst, Gary Peters and Maggie Hassan have introduced legislation that seeks to prevent China, Russia and other countries of concern from influencing U.S. national security contracting.

The Combating Obstructive National Security Underreporting of Legitimate Threats Act aims to increase oversight of consulting firms and government contractors advising on Chinese and Russian militarization efforts and to streamline government agency policies to bar the organization from national security contracts, Ernst said Wednesday.

Consulting firms would be required to disclose any potential conflict of interest concerning national security and other relevant information with foreign adversarial parties. In addition, these could be used for contract denial or contractor suspension and debarment under the CONSULT Act. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council would also be directed to update federal acquisition regulations.

“America’s adversaries, like China and Russia, are aggressively working against our national security interests; so why then would we allow government contractors closely tied to these adversaries to advise our military and Pentagon officials?” said Ernst. “The U.S. is playing a dangerous game; it’s past time we put safeguards in place to ensure no firms hired by the federal government are working simultaneously to support the agenda of our adversaries like China and Russia.”

The Project on Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Transparency International are some of outside organizations that support the CONSULT Act.

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NRO Launches First National Security Mission Onboard Rocket Lab Spacecraft; Chris Scolese Quoted
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NRO Launches First National Security Mission Onboard Rocket Lab Spacecraft; Chris Scolese Quoted

The National Reconnaissance Office’s first national security payload was launched to orbit onboard a Rocket Lab spacecraft as part of the agency’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket program.

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket carrying the NROL-162 mission lifted off from the company’s launch complex in New Zealand, NRO said Wednesday.

NROL-162 is the first of the two national security missions Rocket Lab is contracted to send to space for the agency under the RASR contract. The second mission called NROL-199 is scheduled for launch aboard the Electron vehicle on July 22.

NRO developed the twin missions in collaboration with the Australian defense department to expand the U.S. space-based intelligence collection capabilities.

“This collaboration with Australia bolsters our partnership and strengthens the foundation for future coordination as we work to secure and expand our intelligence advantage in a competitive space environment,” said NRO Director Chris Scolese, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient.

The agency will use the NROL-162 mission to provide a wide range of information to national
decision-makers and intelligence analysts.

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USAF Concludes Booster Test Series for Lockheed-Built Hypersonic Weapon; Brig. Gen. Heath Collins Quoted
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USAF Concludes Booster Test Series for Lockheed-Built Hypersonic Weapon; Brig. Gen. Heath Collins Quoted

The U.S. Air Force has finished tests of the booster performance of a hypersonic weapon system that Lockheed Martin designed to help the service reach time-sensitive targets.

USAF put the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon through another test off the Southern California coast, nearly two months after the prior demonstration took place, the branch said Wednesday.

Tuesday’s flight test was the second time that the ARRW had flown captively on a B-52H Stratofortress bomber aircraft. The first one was completed on May 14. 

“We have now completed our booster test series and are ready to move forward to all-up-round testing later this year,” said Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, program executive officer for weapons and director of USAF’s armament directorate.

Lockheed expects the AGM-183A AARW system to reach early operational capability status sometime in 2023.

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GSA’s Robin Carnahan Announces ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Federal Fleet Electrification
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GSA’s Robin Carnahan Announces ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Federal Fleet Electrification

General Services Administration Administrator Robin Carnahan has unveiled a new “one-stop shop” for federal agencies seeking to procure zero-emission vehicles and install electric vehicle charging stations in support of the Biden administration’s goal of electrifying the federal fleet.

During a visit to the University of Michigan’s Mcity Test Facility, Carnahan said GSA offers a range of specialized acquisition resources to streamline the procurement of necessary infrastructure, including charging stations, for federal facilities, the agency reported Wednesday.

The effort is in line with an executive order signed by President Biden that sets a goal of transitioning the federal fleet to 100 percent zero-emission vehicle purchases by 2035 and 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027.

“Electrifying the federal fleet will have enormous benefits, and we want to make it as easy as possible for federal agencies to make this transition,” Carnahan said.

In April, GSA awarded 16 companies, including nine small businesses, blanket purchase agreements for supplying electric vehicle supply equipment to federal agencies.

The agency expects to award later in the summer new governmentwide construction and design/build indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts for the installation of charging station infrastructure at federal locations across the U.S.

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KBR to Lead Cyber Defense Research and Development for UK Ministry of Defense; EMEA President Andrew Barrie Quoted
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KBR to Lead Cyber Defense Research and Development for UK Ministry of Defense; EMEA President Andrew Barrie Quoted

KBR announced on Thursday that the company will lead the research and development for the next three years to develop and support self-defending, self-recovering cyber defense concepts with the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD), through Frazer-Nash Consultancy, a KBR company.

For the last two decades in the cybersecurity industry, KBR has delivered advice and provided its expertise to advance holistic cyber defense that covers technology, people and processes in order to protect an organizations’ systems and data as well as analyze and mitigate their cyber risks. 

“KBR and Frazer-Nash are renowned for helping organizations safeguard their systems and protect their critical assets and processes through teams that are at the forefront of innovation,” said Andrew Barrie, managing director of Frazer-Nash Consultancy and the president of KBR’s Government Solutions EMEA business.

The work will also be paired with the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) in order to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop cyber defense concepts that can be tested and evaluated against attacks in a simulated military environment as a significant part of the Autonomous Resilient Cyber Defense (ARCD) project.

The latest technologies will be used by Frazer-Nash and Dstl to deliver high-risk, disruptive options centered around AI-driven and cyber defense decision-making as well as informed cyber sensing. In fact, the cyber sensing capabilities will be integrated into the concept demonstrator.

“Dstl are excited to be working with KBR and Frazer-Nash on this vanguard project, delivering cutting-edge response and recovery concept demonstrators over the next three years, with the potential to transform cyber resilience for MOD,” said Zoe Fowle, Dstl’s cybersecurity Programme Manager.

About KBR

We deliver science, technology and engineering solutions to governments and companies around the world. KBR employs approximately 28,000 people performing diverse, complex and mission critical roles in 34 countries.

KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, and long- term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver.

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