Cybersecurity | The Contracting Education Academy

May 28, 2019 By AMK

Another initiative to enhance cyber workforce launched

A White House order on strengthening cybersecurity nationwide in general includes a provision to create a rotational program to boost those skills in the federal workforce, the latest of many such initiatives.

The order instructs OPM and OMB to establish within three months a “rotational assignment program, which will serve as a mechanism for knowledge transfer and a development program for cybersecurity practitioners,” with provisions for training and mentoring.

Also, within six months OPM and other agencies are to “identify a list of cybersecurity aptitude assessments for agencies to use in identifying current employees with the potential to acquire cybersecurity skills for placement in reskilling programs to perform cybersecurity work.” Agencies are to incorporate those assessments into their personnel development programs.

The Senate recently passed a bill to create a similar rotational program and efforts have been under way for years to better define which federal positions involve cybersecurity skills and where there are shortages. The government meanwhile has increased its use of shortcut hiring procedures and incentive pay and has started a program of retraining employees to take on such roles.

Keep reading article at: https://www.fedweek.com/fedweek/another-initiative-to-enhance-cyber-workforce-launched/

May 23, 2019 By AMK

What OMB’s new ‘shared services’ policy will mean for modernization

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

Later today, Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russell Vought will be issuing a memo, “Centralized Mission Support Capabilities for the Federal Government,” which replaces all previous shared services policies. The new policy creates a system for assessing which agency functions—such as payroll or cybersecurity—have consistent standards across government and which specific departments would be best positioned to act as leaders in those areas.

The memo also includes a mandate for the rest of government to follow those agencies and puts a hiatus on new projects once functional areas are identified.

“In the past, agencies took steps to consolidate common mission-support functions internally, and in some cases, to leverage common technology or services offered by other agencies,” Vought wrote in the memo obtained by Nextgov. “The government endeavors to utilize lessons from previous successes and failures to provide a new, enhanced strategic blueprint for sharing quality services within the federal enterprise.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/policy/2019/04/exclusive-what-ombs-new-shared-services-policy-will-mean-modernization/156562/

May 14, 2019 By AMK

Agencies are ‘stepping up’ to prepare the workforce for AI

The government as a whole doesn’t have a set strategy for how they plan to prepare federal workers for the changes that artificial intelligence will cause in their jobs, but agencies are on board with individual efforts to educate and train their own workforces, according to Lynne Parker, assistant director for artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“Agencies are stepping up on their own to create opportunities for people to maybe enroll in a short-term learning course where they can gain skills in IT areas or cybersecurity areas or AI areas,” said Parker at an April 18 National Academy of Public Administration event. “Because each agency knows the kinds of skills and the kinds of work that they do, they’re best suited to create these training programs.”

The Trump administration has been adamant that their pursuit of technological advancement is not designed to displace workers that are already at government agencies, but rather to free up time spent on repetitive tasks so they can focus on problems of greater mission importance.

“It’s quite likely that most of us will have some tasks or parts of our jobs that will be impacted by technology, AI, automation and so forth,” Parker said. “I don’t think most of us need to fear completely losing our jobs, but our jobs will change. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t some areas where AI is particularly well-suited that there may be some impact in the sense at the job goes away. Most studies say that is a small percentage.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/2019/04/18/agencies-are-stepping-up-to-prepare-the-workforce-for-ai/

May 8, 2019 By AMK

GAO wants to build capacity to focus on science and technology, cybersecurity

The Government Accountability Office is on track to achieve its optimal workforce capacity of 3,250 full-time employees this year, but it’s still having trouble keeping up with the quantity of lawmaker requests around new technologies and cybersecurity.

Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO Gene Dodaro told the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee that those are two of GAO’s four major priorities for 2020, where it needs to increase capacity to meet rising demand.

The agency requested a funding increase of $57.8 million more than it received in fiscal 2019, for a total of $647.6 million, in order to build these capacities. Dodaro reminded lawmakers that in 2018, actions on GAO recommendations saved the government $75.1 billion, a return on investment of more than $124 for every $1 GAO received in funding.

Keeping up in science and technology

Part of that increased budget, Dodaro said, would go toward the agency’s new Science, Technology, Assessment and Analytics Team, built on top of the capabilities that GAO already has. That’s part of his first priority: Increasing the speed and capability of GAO to evaluate science and technology issues for Congress. Dodaro said technological changes are happening more rapidly now, and the agency needs to be able to keep up.

“The emergence of science and technology issues is transforming the way that we are learning, communicating, educating,” Dodaro said. “It’s changing the very face of warfare in the future, whether you’re talking artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cryptocurrencies. Blockchains are changing the nature of how financial transactions are conducted, and financial advice.”

But the bright, shiny tech buzzwords of the moment aren’t the only things that fall under GAO’s science and technology umbrella. Dodaro said GAO also looks at antibiotic-resistant bacteria, weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, healthcare, 5G and nanotechnologies.

“With the expansion of our team in this area, we can help Congress avoid spending millions of dollars that aren’t going to produce the technologies everybody thought it was going to produce,” Dodaro said.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hearings-oversight/2019/04/gao-wants-to-build-capacity-to-focus-on-science-and-technology-cybersecurity/

April 29, 2019 By AMK

Why the Navy is giving agencies, industry a much-needed wake-up call on supply chain risks

On page 6 of the Navy’s recent report about its cyber readiness, there is a jaw-dropping confession: “The systems the U.S. relies upon to mobilize, deploy and sustain forces have been extensively targeted by potential adversaries, and compromised to such extent that their reliability is questionable.”

Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, wants that single sentence in the 80-page report to sink in for a second.

“The Navy’s report on their resilience and reliability is that watershed moment not only for the Department of Defense but for all agencies in the federal government, and I would even proffer in the private sector, to have an honest, internal look at their systems, their data, their capabilities and their protection mechanisms and where they have vulnerabilities and how the threats are manifested in their organizations,” Evanina said after speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) event on supply chain management in Arlington, Virginia, on April 1. “I think all agencies should take a hard look and say, ‘What can we do that is similar to this to look at our own processes and protection models?’”

The Navy report serves as a call to arms around the challenges every agency faces from systems under attack to attempts to steal information from its industrial base.

“The DON’s dependency upon the defense industrial base (DIB) presents another large and lucrative source of exploitation for those looking to diminish U.S. military advantage. Key DIB companies, primes, and their suppliers, have been breached and their IP stolen and exploited,” the report states. “These critical supply chains have been compromised in ways and to an extent yet to be fully understood.”

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2019/04/navy-giving-agencies-industry-much-needed-wake-up-call-on-supply-chain-risks/

A White House order on strengthening cybersecurity nationwide in general includes a provision to create a rotational program to boost those skills in the federal workforce, the latest of many such initiatives.

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

The Government Accountability Office is on track to achieve its optimal workforce capacity of 3,250 full-time employees this year, but it’s still having trouble keeping up with the quantity of lawmaker requests around new technologies and cybersecurity.

Keeping up in science and technology

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