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October 22, 2018 By AMK

Georgia Tech to offer ‘Hacking for Defense’ course in 2019

The Georgia Institute of Technology will begin offering a course in 2019 designed to give students opportunities to study — and potentially solve — challenges from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and related intelligence agencies.

The semester-long Hacking for Defense (H4D) course was created and first launched at Stanford University in 2016 by retired U.S. Army Col. Pete Newell, retired Special Forces and Foreign Area Officer Joe Felter; Tom Byers, director of the Stanford Technology Ventures program; and Steve Blank, a retired serial entrepreneur and the creator of the Lean Startup movement.

At the Institute, the course will be taught by Keith McGreggor, director of VentureLab, a program in Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute that helps faculty and students create startups based on Tech research. Co-teaching the class with him will be Lawrence Rubin, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

As designed, students will be given a current real problem intelligence or defense agencies face and work on that challenge for the entire semester to validate the problem and work to solve it, Newell said.

“Technology is continually changing and by creating this mixing bowl in a university, you’re in an ideal place for bringing government problems to the problem-solvers and energizing young people into doing something that’s impactful,” said Newell, who is managing partner of BMNT.

BMNT’s nonprofit arm, Hacking for Defense Inc. (H4Di), oversees the H4D program.

H4D addresses four necessary components to help federal agencies be more innovative, said Newell, who is former director of the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force.

  • For the federal sponsors themselves, they get world-class market research to tackle problems at a faster pace than anywhere else and engage with potential employees or future collaborators by creating an innovation network pipeline.
  • Students get to work on a real challenge and learn by creating a case study of a real problem, he said.
  • For private industry, it gives them an early look at the problems government agencies are looking to solve — which often mirror some of the same issues business is trying to address.
  • Finally, universities such as Georgia Tech, are increasingly looking to deliver cutting-edge education to students that gives them experience in building innovative and disruptive solutions beyond basic research.

That matches the entrepreneurship experience that Tech wants all of its students to have, McGreggor said.

“We’re trying to create an armada of entrepreneurial students and we want every student at Georgia Tech to have that entrepreneurial experience before they graduate,” McGreggor said. “Hacking for Defense is going to be different in that participating students won’t be coming up with a startup idea; these defense and intelligence agencies will meet with us with the problems they want us to figure out. It’s an opportunity for our students to think about solving a different kind of problem.”

As part of the rollout and expansion of the program to Tech and other organizations, H4Di was on campus Sept. 20 and 21 to train about 60 people from across the country who will be teaching H4D courses on the methodology behind it.

“The defense and national security challenges we’re seeing are evolving at a pace we’ve never seen before in our history and to tackle these issues, we have to connect DoD to cultures of innovation and those are largely housed in academia and the venture community,” said Max Weintraub who works to form collaborative relationships between the DoD and universities as the H4D program manager at the MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator, the DoD program office that sponsors H4D at Georgia Tech and other leading universities. “We’re excited that Georgia Tech is on the list.”

Tech will join a number of top schools already teaching the class, that, in addition to Stanford, include: Columbia University, the University of Southern California, Georgetown University, the University of Virginia, and the United States Air Force Academy.

What makes Tech an attractive choice is Atlanta’s solid base of entrepreneurial activity, Georgia’s manufacturing and industrial capacity, the number of military installations and government labs in the state and its Southeast neighbors, and the federal research dollars the Institute attracts.

“It’s easy to draw a circle around Georgia Tech right there in the Southeast as being in the epicenter of a great entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Newell said.

Since the original launch, H4D has led to nine startup companies being formed, including Capella Space, a company that makes low-orbit satellites with a synthetic aperture radar technology that takes quality images regardless of clouds, light or other atmospheric conditions.

But while some students may ultimately form their own companies, Newell stressed that is not the core goal.

“We’re giving them the ability to engage with the government to work on a real problem to gain real-world experience,” Newell said. “They get to develop the critical problem-solving skill sets that will be most in demand in the future.”

Source: https://innovate.gatech.edu/news/georgia-tech-to-offer-hacking-for-defense-course-in-2019/

Filed Under: Georgia Tech News Tagged With: DoD, entrepreneurship, hack, Hacking for Defense

October 12, 2018 By AMK

GAO reviews agency actions in the wake of Equifax data breach

It’s easy to forget that roughly a year ago, Equifax was hacked, which compromised the personal information of roughly 145.5 million individuals.

The scope of the breach was concerning for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Equifax was providing identity verification services for three federal agencies at the time it was attacked.

In a recent report, GAO reviewed how these agencies responded to the attack. While not making any specific recommendations at this time, GAO’s report does highlight the extent to which federal agencies were not fully prepared for cyberattacks on private contractors.

Prior to the Equifax breach, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and USPS contracted with Equifax to provide identity verification services. These agencies relied on Equifax’s databases to verify the identities of individuals applying for various services. For example, the IRS used Equifax servers to verify identities for tax return purposes.

Following the Equifax cyberattack, agencies took a variety of steps to assess the situation and make proactive changes to their contracts with Equifax. Foremost was notifying impacted individuals. While there was no breach of agency systems in connection with the Equifax attack, there was nevertheless concern that impacted individuals may have had an increased risk for identity theft. Accordingly, one of the first actions taken by the impacted agencies was to notify impacted individuals.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/uncategorized/gao-reviews-agency-actions-in-the-wake-of-equifax-data-breach/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cyberattacks, cybersecurity, data breach, Equifax, GAO, hack, IRS, Social Security Administration, USPS

May 16, 2018 By AMK

Agency that vets Pentagon contractors’ security isn’t keeping up with the threat, audit finds

The Pentagon agency responsible for vetting contractors that handle classified information isn’t keeping up with the threat, according to an auditor’s report released Monday.

The Defense Security Service, or DSS, is responsible for vetting the security of over 12,000 contractor facilities, but could only accomplish about 60 percent of its workload during the 2016 fiscal year, according to the Government Accountability Office report.

That’s despite DSS’ own statement “that the United States is facing the most significant foreign intelligence threat it has ever encountered,” the report states.

DSS security reviews are broadly similar to the personal security clearances that government employees and contractors undergo and include issues such as a company’s foreign ties and risky past behavior.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/05/agency-vets-pentagon-contractors-security-isnt-keeping-threat-audit-finds/148201/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cyber, cybersecurity, Defense Security Service, DoD, DSS, hack, hackers, Pentagon, security, security clearance

April 9, 2018 By AMK

Paper submittals will soon be required of all SAM.gov registrants

Effective April 27, 2018, the General Services Administration (GSA) will be requiring each entity that wants to renew or update their electronic registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) to mail-in an original, signed notarized letter that confirms the identity of the account’s authorized administrator.

This comes as a follow-up to an announcement make about two and a half weeks ago that GSA is engaged in “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within SAM.

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government.  GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

At present, before a new SAM entity registration is activated, the entity establishing the new record in SAM must submit an original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized “entity administrator” who is associated with the entity’s DUNS number.  With GSA’s latest announcement, the notarized letter also will be required of all existing SAM registrants who wish to update or renew their record.

The alleged breach of the SAM database was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), and there is ongoing concern that vendors’ financial information and points of contact could be exposed.  This creates risk that grant and contract payments could be diverted.

In GSA’s first announcement of the problem, GSA advised that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.”   SAM contains bank routing information on each entity.  GSA’s advice was later updated to say: “If an entity suspects a payment due them from a Federal agency was paid to a bank account other than their own, they should contact the Federal Service Desk.”

The Federal Service Desk can be contacted by phone at 866-606-8220 (toll free) or 334-206-7828 (internationally), Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (EDT).

The notarized letter, on company stationery, is to be mailed to the Federal Service Desk.  Details for the letter appear at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=kb0013183.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter.  It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: breach, cyber incidents, cyberattacks, financial risk, fraud, GSA, hack, SAM, vendor registration

March 23, 2018 By AMK

SAM hacked: New vendor registrations require paper documentation

The General Services Administration reports that there is “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within the System for Award Management (SAM).

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government.  GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

The alleged breach was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).  GSA is concerned that vendor’s financial information and points of contact could be exposed.

GSA reports that entities whose financial information has changed within the last year are in the process of being notified and are being advised to validate their registration information, particularly their financial information.  GSA’s notification process began on March 22, 2018.

An “entity” is any company, business, or organization who has registered within SAM as a federal contractor or would-be federal contractor.

In the announcement of the breach, GSA advises that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.”   SAM contains bank routing information on each entity.

New SAM registration procedures are now in effect, presumably temporarily.  An original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized Entity Administrator for the entity associated with the DUNS number must be submitted before a new SAM entity registration will be activated.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter.  It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

Information on GSA’s work-around SAM registration process is detailed on the Federal Service Desk’s web site at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=sam

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: breach, cyber incidents, cyberattacks, financial risk, fraud, GSA, hack, SAM, vendor registration

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