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DHS Unveils $1.6B in FY22 Preparedness Grant Programs; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted
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DHS Unveils $1.6B in FY22 Preparedness Grant Programs; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted

Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and a previous Wash100 Award winner, has announced $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 grant programs that intend to help state and local government officials prevent, respond and protect against terrorist attacks and other hazards.

Mayorkas said in a statement published Friday the Nonprofit Security Grant Program will see its funding increase by $70 million to $250 million to enable more nonprofit organizations to introduce physical security improvements to help protect against attacks.

“This year, I have designated two new national priority areas for the FY 2022 State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant programs: Community Preparedness and Resilience; and Election Security,” he noted.

UASI will get an allocation of $615 million, while SHSP will receive $415 million in funding. Other preparedness grant programs and their respective FY 2022 allocations are listed below.

  • Emergency Operations Center Grant Program – $49 million 
  • Homeland Security Grant Program: Operation Stonegarden – $90 million 
  • Intercity Bus Security Grant Program – $2 million 
  • Intercity Passenger Rail – $10 million 
  • Port Security Grant Program – $100 million 
  • Transit Security Grant Program – $93 million 
  • Tribal Homeland Security Grant Program – $15 million

 

The department has outlined six national priority areas in the grant cycle for FY 2022: cybersecurity; community preparedness and resilience; election security; soft targets and crowded places; domestic violent extremism; intelligence and information sharing.

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Report: State Department CIO Keith Jones to Rejoin Private Sector
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Report: State Department CIO Keith Jones to Rejoin Private Sector

Keith Jones, chief information officer of the State Department, will step down from his position on June 17 and plans to work again in the private sector, Federal News Network reported Friday.

Jones, who assumed the CIO role in January 2021, oversees departmentwide technology programs worth a combined $2.4 billion.

He returned to the government last year after his more than two-year tenure as a principal at Deep Water Point and as president and CEO at The Edgewater Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.

His 37-year federal service also includes time as principal deputy CIO at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, deputy executive director in the Department of Homeland Security’s Information Technology Services Office and deputy CIO at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The report said Glenn Miller, principal deputy CIO of the State Department, will step in on an acting basis after Jones’ departure.

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Alissa Bookwalter Seeks to Advance Diversity, Inclusion Efforts at Kessel Run
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Alissa Bookwalter Seeks to Advance Diversity, Inclusion Efforts at Kessel Run

Alissa Bookwalter, chief of staff for the All Domain Common Platform team at the U.S. Air Force’s Kessel Run organization, said she intends to focus on advancing diversity, inclusion and equity in hiring at the software factory.

“It’s important that government services are representative of the people that they actually serve … The military is so diverse,” Bookwalter told FCW in an interview published May 9.

“The American population is so diverse. And that’s something that Kessel Run has really, really made an effort on. And so I want to continue to iterate and help our product line continue to shape that,” she added.

Bookwalter, formerly deputy director for talent management and people operations at the U.S. Digital Service, shared her views on remote hiring at Kessel Run and discussed her role as director of the newly created Federal Military Family Workforce Network.

She noted that she plans to continue to advance collaboration at Kessel Run.

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Deltek Completes Digital Transformation of Qarbon Aerospace IT Infrastructure; CEO Mike Corkery Quoted
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Deltek Completes Digital Transformation of Qarbon Aerospace IT Infrastructure; CEO Mike Corkery Quoted

Deltek, the project software and services company, has assisted Qarbon Aerospace transition their system architecture from a legacy solution SAP to Deltek’s Costpoint platform.

Deltek, the project-based software and services company, has assisted Qarbon Aerospace in transitioning their system architecture from their legacy solution SAP to Deltek’s Costpoint platform.

As part of the ‘Project Bulldozer’ initiative and with the help of Deltek and TIP Technologies, Qarbon Aerospace successfully completed an overhaul of its information technology infrastructure by the organization’s first anniversary, Deltek said Friday.

Mike Corkery, CEO and president of Deltek, attributed the timely and efficient achievement of the project to the three involved companies’ collaboration and synergy.

“The Deltek team is thrilled to support Qarbon Aerospace’s digital transformation efforts and we look forward to partnering with them as they grow their business,” said Corkery, who is also a two-time Wash100 Award recipient.

Implementing Deltek’s platform has enabled Qarbon Aerospace to modernize its accounting, finance and procurement functions, in addition to its manufacturing, supply chain and cybersecurity capabilities. Deltek Costpoint supports the administration of mission-critical processes across the full lifecycle, from proposal to contracts and including material planning, manufacture and billing.

Specifically, Qarbon Aerospace has put in place the Deltek Costpoint GovCon Cloud Moderate program in order to meet FedRAMP Moderate, ITAR and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Level 2 specifications.

Qarbon Aerospace also received a significant boost from the work and portfolio of TIP Technologies, who provided and integrated their TIPQA Quality Management Solution and TIPSFE Shop Floor Execution Solution software for manufacturing needs.

TIP Technologies is a frequent partner of Deltek and their programs are built to integrate seamlessly with Deltek’s.

Qarbon Aerospace CEO Pete Wick congratulated his team for the successful system overhaul and praised Deltek and TIP Technologies for their work.

“This is an outstanding accomplishment that could only be achieved by a world-class group of people,” Wick enthused.

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NIST Awards Grants for Manufacturing USA Technology Roadmaps Program; Mike Molnar Quoted
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NIST Awards Grants for Manufacturing USA Technology Roadmaps Program; Mike Molnar Quoted

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has awarded $2.08 million in total grants to seven research projects to create technology roadmaps for advancing the manufacturing industry.

Each award under the Manufacturing USA Technology Roadmaps program is valued at up to $300,000 and will run for one year and six months to identify challenges and barriers that hinder the growth of advanced manufacturing technology in the U.S.

The awardees for the second MfgTech grant are Edison Welding Institute, SRI International, International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, ASTM International, the University of Houston, Case Western Reserve University and the University of New Hampshire.

Each consortium will develop technology roadmaps to prioritize research and development initiatives, such as the adoption of emerging technologies like additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and machine learning and robotics.

“This new round of awards enables strategic partnerships across the country that will identify and document ways to accelerate the adoption of critical manufacturing technologies in the U.S.,” said Mike Molnar, director of the NIST Office of Advanced Manufacturing.

The research projects will also aim to address skills shortages, promote diversity and inclusion in manufacturing and accelerate technology development and commercialization.

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Biden Inks Legislation for National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Initiative
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Biden Inks Legislation for National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Initiative

President Biden signed into law the now National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act that would enable the Department of Homeland Security to collaborate with nonprofit entities on the development, modernization and hosting of cybersecurity training to support defense against and response to cybersecurity risks.

Sens. John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy said in a statement published Thursday the new law was aimed at securing critical infrastructure from cyber attacks and ensuring cyber preparedness.

DHS and the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium, which is composed of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, the University of Arkansas, the University of Memphis, Norwich University and other university-based training organizations, will partner to train first responders and officials from state and local governments on cybersecurity, support creation of information sharing programs and help expand state and local emergency plans with cybersecurity risk and incident prevention and response.

They will also provide technical assistance and host simulation exercises for the private industry and critical infrastructure owners and operators in addition to state and local governments.

“With this new law, DHS and NCPC will be able to work over multiple years to raise the cyber skills of those they help,” said Sen. Leahy.

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Palo Alto Networks Urges for ZTNA 2.0 Use in Cybersecurity Protection; GovCon Expert Dana Barnes Quoted
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Palo Alto Networks Urges for ZTNA 2.0 Use in Cybersecurity Protection; GovCon Expert Dana Barnes Quoted

Palo Alto Networks announced on Thursday that the company has urged the cyber industry to move to Zero Trust Network Access 2.0 (ZTNA 2.0) in order to act as a replacement for virtual private networks (VPNs) since the current set of zero-trust products leave customers at risk.

“Federal agencies seeking to comply with the Biden Administration’s guidelines to adopt a Zero Trust model by 2024, should consider how solutions like ZTNA 2.0 can help them meet more robust network security requirements by providing greater protections for their workforce, whether employees are in the office or in a remote work environment,” said GovCon Expert Dana Barnes, senior vice president of Palo Alto Networks Public Sector and a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient. 

As a result of current hybrid work and distributed applications for modern federal agencies, there have been significant gaps in granting access to applications as well as a lack of monitoring on the user experience side as well as the application and device behavior. Most importantly, ZTNA 1.0 capabilities aren’t able to protect all enterprise data from malware and other major problems. 

Through its products like Prisma Access, Palo Alto Networks continues to help organizations and government agencies to meet the security challenges of the hybrid workforce, the latest threats and modern applications. 

More specifically, ZTNA 2.0 products include least privileged to enable access control at the application and sub-application levels, independent of network constructs. Other necessities to shift to include continuous trust verification and security inspection to evaluate user behavior to protect against potential threats and protect all data across the entire enterprise and applications. 

“This is a critical time for cybersecurity. We are in an era of unprecedented cyberattacks, and the past two years have dramatically changed work — for many, work is now an activity, not a place. This means that securing employees and the applications they need is both harder and more important,” said Nir Zuk, founder and chief technology officer at Palo Alto Networks. 

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access offers the industry’s only solution to address these gaps while utilizing the best-in-class security capabilities to secure all the data and provide access to our customer’s applications. 

In order to address these gaps in zero-trust technology, Prisma Access has made several critical additions to improve its customers’ capabilities. These additions include a ZTNA connector that eases the process of onboarding cloud-native and traditional applications into the service as well as the industry’s only unified SASE product and an autonomous digital experience management (ADEM) system. 

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, is shaping the cloud-centric future with technology that is transforming the way people and organizations operate. Our mission is to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life. 

By delivering an integrated platform and empowering a growing ecosystem of partners, we are at the forefront of protecting tens of thousands of organizations across clouds, networks, and mobile devices. Our vision is a world where each day is more secure than the one before. 

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Rock Solid Intros Consolidated Citizen Engagement Platform; CEO Tom Spengler Quoted
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Rock Solid Intros Consolidated Citizen Engagement Platform; CEO Tom Spengler Quoted

Rock Solid Technology has launched OnePlatform, a consolidated suite of software as a service offerings meant to provide local government customers with enhanced citizen engagement capabilities.

The company said Thursday OnePlatform includes OneMeeting, a rebrand of PrimeGov that Rock Solid acquired in 2021 in an effort to expand its portfolio with a meeting management technology.

“OneMeeting is a new name, but the PrimeGov mission of empowering local government professionals remains the same,” commented Tom Spengler, CEO of Rock Solid.

Aside from OneMeeting, the consolidated citizen engagement platform also has OneView for automating service request workflows via constituent relationship manager and OneRequest for equipping citizens with online request portals to streamline the process.

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Study Finds No Unbridgeable Divide Between Pentagon, Silicon Valley Over Military Use of AI
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Study Finds No Unbridgeable Divide Between Pentagon, Silicon Valley Over Military Use of AI

A RAND Corp. study found no unbridgeable gap between the Department of Defense and Silicon Valley and showed more similarities in attitudes across Silicon Valley employees, defense industrial base and alumni of universities with regard to the military use of artificial intelligence.

RAND surveyed 1,178 software engineers from traditional defense contractors, Silicon Valley and alumni of computer science universities between December 2020 and April 2021 and found that at least 33 percent of respondents from three large software companies feel uncomfortable with lethal use cases for AI.

The study found that over 66 percent of respondents in each population considered cyberattacks as critical threats to the U.S. and more than 75 percent from all three survey populations thought of Russia and China as serious threats to the U.S.

According to the report, nearly 90 percent of participants said they believe the use of military force would be justified to defend the U.S. and NATO allies against foreign aggression.

The study also showed that almost 20 percent of DIB software engineers had previously served in the U.S. armed forces, while less than 2 percent of respondents from Silicon Valley had served in the military.

RAND said the study suggests potential areas to explore to help strengthen the Pentagon’s relationship with companies and experts that are not part of the defense industrial base, such as exploring measures to broaden collaboration between DOD and Silicon Valley with regard to threats posed by cyberattacks and “exploring the potential benefits of DoD engaging Silicon Valley engineers on some of the details of how DoD intends to use AI.”

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FCC Enters Interagency Data Sharing Agreement for Broadband Projects
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FCC Enters Interagency Data Sharing Agreement for Broadband Projects

The Federal Communications Commission has agreed to exchange information with three other agencies on federally funded broadband deployment projects.

FCC said Thursday it signed an interagency agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information as well as the departments of Agriculture and the Treasury as part of interagency efforts to coordinate the government’s high-speed internet investments.

Officials plan to share data from FCC initiatives, the Rural Utilities Service at USDA, the Treasury’s Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund and NTIA programs.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Treasury Chief Recovery Officer Jacob Leibenluft and Alan Davidson, administrator of NTIA and assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information.

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