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GSA Launched Efforts to Support Small Business Week; Robin Carnahan Quoted
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GSA Launched Efforts to Support Small Business Week; Robin Carnahan Quoted

The General Services Administration (GSA) released opportunities and held an educational workshop event to support last month's Small Business Week campaign.

The agency said Friday that its Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization showcased federal contracting opportunities to small businesses seeking to pursue federal projects.

GSA also virtually hosted the Small Business Works: 2021 Level Up & Network Series, an event that helped small businesses learn more about federal contracting and determine pursuits that match their strengths.

“We want to ensure that small businesses from disadvantaged socioeconomic categories and communities are well-represented in the procurement process," said Robin Carnahan, GSA administrator.

The agency is helping the Biden administration grow the number of small disadvantaged businesses engaged in federal contracting by fifty percent.

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David McKeown: DOD Eyes Industry Technologies to Support Defense Cybersecurity
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David McKeown: DOD Eyes Industry Technologies to Support Defense Cybersecurity

David McKeown, the Department of Defense’s chief information security officer (CISO) and deputy chief information officer (CIO), has looked on the industry for cybersecurity technologies to defend defense networks.

He shared that his agency needs help from private-sector companies to bake in cybersecurity on tools and networks to replace its current practice of purchasing defense capabilities as an add-on feature, DOD said Friday.

Speaking at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit, McKeown conceded that the historically secure Pentagon still has a spot malicious actors can exploit given the sheer number of devices connected to defense networks.

He pointed out that the industry provides better security solutions, noting an effort in which DOD tapped Microsoft to help secure defense personnel’s transition to a cloud environment.

The official also shared that DOD will continue to adopt technologies of different types from the industry, including those that can be purchased at scale and those that can be overlaid on top of its network infrastructure.

“We want to meet with industry, we want to know what they have, but we do want them to be cognizant of the fact that we really kind of demand a secure solution coming in the door,” explained McKeown.

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Carlos Del Toro’s NavSec Strategic Guidance Focuses on Maintaining Naval Dominance
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Carlos Del Toro’s NavSec Strategic Guidance Focuses on Maintaining Naval Dominance

Carlos Del Toro, the secretary of the Department of the Navy, has released guidance detailing the planning, investments, budgeting and other efforts of his agency to maintain U.S. naval dominance.

The One Navy-Marine Corps Team: Strategic Guidance outlines Del Toro's vision for building, training and equipping naval forces to ensure victory in future conflicts, the U.S. Navy said Friday.

The document also touches on the civilian official's priorities of keeping the Navy the most dominant maritime force, empowering the naval workforce and strengthening strategic relationships with allies and partners.

Del Tero explained that investing in the right capabilities will enable the Navy to defeat its adversaries, which will define the service's missions in the following years.

“Building the future capability we need to compete globally while taking care of our Sailors, Marines and military personnel requires a fully integrated Navy and Marine Corps team,” explained the official.

The document builds on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's integrated deterrence vision, U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger's Force Design 2030 for modernized USMC expeditionary posture and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday's Navigation Plan for expanded fleet capabilities.

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Lt. Gen. Michael Groen: AI-Backed Cyber Defense Begins With Network Security
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Lt. Gen. Michael Groen: AI-Backed Cyber Defense Begins With Network Security

Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) and a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, said that artificial intelligence’s first cyber defense aspect begins with network security, DOD News reported Friday. 

The Department of Defense is shifting its mindset on networks and architecture because these play a significant role in warfighting and must be treated as weapons, Groen said at a cybersecurity summit. 

“We have to plan to protect them, make them resilient because everything that we're going to do in an artificial intelligence or data-driven way will depend on the security [of] those networks," he added.

JAIC is working with the U.S. Cyber Command on various efforts to apply AI in network protection—a mission that Groen expects to expand rapidly in the coming years. 

But to adopt AI integration in the military, he said the department will field through an “incremental approach” by using AI to address small-scale issues first and later on develop other AI-backed strategies to improve processes in the service. 

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U.S. Space Force Taps Serco for Space Fence Operations, Maintenance; CEO Dave Dacquino Quoted
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U.S. Space Force Taps Serco for Space Fence Operations, Maintenance; CEO Dave Dacquino Quoted

Serco Inc. has secured a potential five-year $33 million Space Fence Operations and Maintenance contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Operations Command (SpOC). The contract has a five-month base period with five one-year options.

Under the new contract, Serco will provide management, operation, maintenance and logistical support for SpOC’s Space Fence surveillance system, the company said Tuesday.

Two-time Wash100 Award winner Dave Dacquino, Serco’s CEO, said the company will leverage its established history and expertise in space operations to perform the contracted work.

“From Serco’s RAF Fylingdales work in the U.K starting in 1963 through our GEODSS win here in the U.S. last year, Serco brings an impressive depth and breadth of experience and knowledge to space operations,” Dacquino noted.

Serco's aforementioned U.S. contract win in April 2020 allowed the company to operate and maintain the Space Force’s Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system. 

The new contract continues Serco’s work with the Space Force to advance the nation’s space intelligence capabilities and improve Space Domain Awareness.

The Space Fence is a second-generation ground-based S-band radar space surveillance system designed to establish U.S. space superiority through tracking and cataloging orbital objects. The mission is the U.S. Department of Defense’s first to be operated from a net-centric location.

Additionally, Serco’s contracted work will include operations, cybersecurity, training and knowledge management for the Space Fence S-band radar and its supporting systems.

Serco will perform work in Huntsville, Alabama and Kwajalein Atoll, the Marshall Islands with support from the company’s Colorado Springs facility. 

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CBO Presents Analysis of 3 Options for National Defense Under Reduced DOD Budget
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CBO Presents Analysis of 3 Options for National Defense Under Reduced DOD Budget

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examined three options for national defense if funding for the Pentagon would be reduced by 14 percent, or approximately $1 trillion, from 2022 through 2031.

Under the first option, the Department of Defense would maintain the “deterrence by denial” as its national security strategy and reduce the size of its U.S. forces by approximately 20 percent while keeping the “same balance of capabilities,” CBO said in a report published Thursday.

For the second option, the U.S. would transition its strategy to “deterrence through punishment” and would heavily rely on allied forces in combat operations while bolstering its long-range strike capabilities, including air defense missiles and cruise missiles.

Under the third option, the U.S. government would focus on keeping the freedom of space, air and maritime navigation, which is also known as the global commons; increase investment in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for the Air Force and Space Force; and keep a larger naval force than the first option to help the U.S. facilitate control of sea lanes.

“Although the second and third options would require the same amount of funding as the first option, they would result in different force structures and different budget allocations among the military services,” the CBO report reads.

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NIST Seeks Security Platforms for Data-Centric Security Management Project
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NIST Seeks Security Platforms for Data-Centric Security Management Project

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has asked industry and other interested stakeholders to provide products that could help demonstrate security technologies for a project meant to facilitate data-centric security management. 

NIST is seeking letters of interest to help the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) work with tech companies to address cyber challenges identified in the project titled Data Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management, according to a notice published Friday.

The project seeks to come up with technology-agnostic practices for defining data handling and data classification rulesets to help improve current cyber and privacy risk management practices.

Organizations should include in their letters of interest commercially available security platform components and capabilities. These components include client devices, client device apps, enterprise services, data services and business services.

NIST also wants respondents to identify how their platforms help address desired security properties and characteristics, including the availability of a mechanism to verify the integrity of data handling rulesets and a method to validate the integrity of data classification tags or labels.

Selected organizations will provide and demonstrate security platforms under a consortium cooperative research and development agreement with NIST.

“Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough completed and signed letters of interest have been returned to address all the necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than November 8, 2021,” the NIST notice reads.

NIST Seeks Security Platforms for Data-Centric Security Management Project

ExecutiveBiz, sister site of GovCon Wire and part of the Executive Mosaic digital media umbrella, will host a virtual event about securing the supply chain on Oct. 26. Visit ExecutiveBiz.com to sign up for the “Supply Chain Cybersecurity: Revelations and Innovations” event.

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OMB Issues Endpoint Detection and Response Implementation Guidance to Federal Agencies
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OMB Issues Endpoint Detection and Response Implementation Guidance to Federal Agencies

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a memorandum to guide agencies how to advance the adoption of endpoint detection and response (EDR) platforms to help facilitate the detection of cyber vulnerabilities and related threats on federal networks in accordance with the cybersecurity executive order signed in May.

Shalanda Young, acting director of OMB, wrote in the memo published Friday that agencies should provide the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) access to enterprise EDR deployments within 90 days.

The document calls for CISA to come up with a process for continuous performance monitoring of EDR deployment efforts, provide recommendations to OMB on ways to further advance EDR implementation initiatives and develop a technical reference architecture and maturity model within three months. 

CISA should also coordinate with the Chief Information Officer Council to create a playbook of best practices for EDR system deployments within 180 days. 

Agencies should carry out an analysis to evaluate the status of EDR capabilities within 120 days and coordinate with CISA on future and current EDR deployments to ensure that the platforms align with the agency’s technical reference architecture.

The memo also directs agencies to work with OMB’s resource management office and their chief financial officers to ensure that they have sufficient resources and personnel to maintain EDR tools and make sure that those systems comply with statistical and privacy policies and laws.

Supply Chain Cybersecurity: Revelations and Innovations

ExecutiveBiz, sister site of GovCon Wire and part of the Executive Mosaic digital media umbrella, will host a virtual event about securing the supply chain on Oct. 26. Visit ExecutiveBiz.com to sign up for the “Supply Chain Cybersecurity: Revelations and Innovations” event.

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ARC Develops AI/ML Maintenance Platform for U.S. Marine Corps Under SBIR Phase III Contract
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ARC Develops AI/ML Maintenance Platform for U.S. Marine Corps Under SBIR Phase III Contract

Armaments Research Company (ARC) will develop a predictive maintenance platform for crew-served weapons for the U.S. Marine Corps under the company’s recently awarded five-year, $60 million SBIR Phase III contract.

The SBIR Phase III contract with the Department of Defense and General Services Administration allows ARC to develop systems in support of the military’s Joint All-Domain Command and Controlw (JADC2) project portfolio, which aims to connect military service sensors into an integrated, centralized network.

ARC will embed its adapted Internet of Things sensor into crew-served weapons platforms to collect, synthesize and communicate diagnostics which will enable predictive maintenance and optimize unit readiness by allowing units to better assess overall platform health, the company said Thursday.

“Supporting the Marines’ leap forward from time- to conditions-based maintenance for their medium-caliber weapons creates an extraordinary potential for efficiencies,” said ARC’s CEO Michael Canty. 

Canty added that non-age-related equipment issues typically comprise about 80 percent of total failures, and ARC’s work on the project will help the Marine Corps to understand, predict and prevent these issues.

Throughout this project, ARC will continue to develop its artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered weapons sensor, ARC-Response, scaling the sensor from small- to medium-caliber weapons platforms. 

Data collected by the improved sensors will be used to develop machine learning algorithms to identify parts in need of repair and detect potential parts failures before they occur, ensuring operational safety.

Last month, ARC introduced two task orders under the contract, which focus on fusing data from ARC’s AI-enabled edge computing sensors with other data sources to utilize mobile and extended reality platforms to transmit information to tactical forces more quickly.

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RedTail LiDAR Systems to Enhance EOD 3D Mapping Missions; Brad DeRoos Quoted
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RedTail LiDAR Systems to Enhance EOD 3D Mapping Missions; Brad DeRoos Quoted

RedTail LiDAR Systems has delivered six LiDAR systems to the 707th Ordnance Company at Joint Base Lewis-McChord to provide an opportunity for its Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians to assess how LiDAR systems may be used to enhance operations.

Leveraging a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) mirror-based design licensed from the Army Research Laboratory, the LiDAR technology will be used to improve the EOD Company’s 3D mapping, crater volume calculation, unmanned ground vehicle route planning, mission planning and surveillance capabilities, the company said Tuesday.

"Delivering these six LiDAR systems to EOD technicians for test and evaluation is a significant step forward in using MEMS mirror-based LiDAR technology to address a broad range of Department of Defense 3D mapping needs,” said RedTail LiDAR Systems President and CEO, Brad DeRoos. 

Additionally, DeRoos applauded the company’s success in transitioning this technology from the laboratory to military operations in the field.

The LiDAR Systems RTL-450 was integrated onto the Teledyne FLIR SkyRaider Unmanned Aerial System and will be utilized to enhance 3D imagery, especially in applications that deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to detect and classify targets.

The systems’ rotation and zoom capabilities within the viewer software will allow operating areas to be viewed from multiple perspectives. This, coupled with the systems’ real-time 3D area mapping and scanning capabilities, will enable operators to accelerate critical mission planning and analysis.

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