Homeland Security | The Contracting Education Academy

July 24, 2019 By AMK

Procurement chiefs are watching the spread of RPA

Robotics process automation use across government “is exploding,” Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said at the Shared Services Leadership Coalition RPA conference.

Newhart said OFPP is closely watching how RPA is being leveraged by agencies such as Health and Human Services for acquisitions and the General Services Administration, which is using it to smooth out some of its internal processes such as sifting through data to find unpaid invoices.

The Department of Treasury, she said, is using RPA to do background reviews of contractor performance to help its contracting officers with their due diligence in awarding contracts.

Those kinds of RPA applications could transform federal acquisition in only a few years, as they take over repetitive internal tasks, according to Newhart. OFPP, she said, is planning to share some of its observations on RPA with agencies soon.

Keep reading article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/05/29/rpa-ofpp-rockwell.aspx

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/

March 5, 2019 By AMK

Should ICE use GSA Schedules for agile development — or go its own way?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say the agency has been doing well adopting agile development practices and wants to keep that going once its current suite of contracts expire.

The big question: Should ICE follow Homeland Security Department headquarters in looking to pre-established contracts through the General Services Administration or build its own vehicle?

ICE has been contracting for its agile development needs with vendors off of Homeland Security’s Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions, or EAGLE II. When that vehicle expires in 2020, ICE will need a new pool of vendors.

In December, DHS Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa announced the third iteration of EAGLE, dubbed EAGLE Next Gen, will be more of a strategy than a contract. Correa told Homeland Security components once EAGLE II expires, the agency will push offices toward using six governmentwide acquisition contracts, or GWACS: GSA’s Alliant 2 and Alliant 2 Small Business, 8(a) STARS II and VETS 2, and the National Institutes of Health’s CIO-SP3 and CIO-SP3 Small Business.

However, Correa also left additional options open, including specific contracts for unique mission areas.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/02/should-ice-use-gsa-schedules-agile-development-or-go-its-own-way/155145/

November 6, 2018 By AMK

Cyber supply chain task force to meet soon

A task force focused on reducing cybersecurity risks in the nation’s technology and communications supply chain will meet for the first time in the next few weeks, the Homeland Security Department announced last week.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the task force’s creation during a cyber conference in New York in July during which she also announced the creation of a new Homeland Security division, the National Cyber Risk Management Center, focused on long-range cyber issues.

The task force will be chaired by private sector leaders but will be sponsored by the risk management center, according to a Homeland Security news release.

The task force will focus on government and industry supply chains and criminal and nation-state hacker efforts to compromise contractors and subcontractors deep within those supply chains, the department said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/10/cyber-supply-chain-task-force-meet-soon/152429/

October 31, 2018 By AMK

DHS to use federal procurement to further reduce risks to the supply chain

The Homeland Security Department’s initiatives over the past year to address supply chain risks aren’t even close to hitting a crescendo. But the pace and volume of the drumbeat is distinctly mounting.

If the efforts to ban Kaspersky Lab, ZTE and Huawei products were just the prelude to the symphony, then the National Risk Management Center’s initial sprint topics, the business due diligence request for information and the latest effort to use the power of federal procurement are the opening sonata.

“There is a growing awareness and understanding to this issue. Our biggest challenge today is not having a national strategy around it while other countries do,” said Jennifer Bisceglie, president and CEO of Interos Solutions, which provides risk assessment services. “Until we have a national strategy, you will have pop up policies or programs or studies, like the one from MITRE. The time is beyond here to have a national strategy.”

The White House’s National Cyber Strategy gave a brief mention to supply chain risk management, saying the government should “improve awareness of supply chain threats and reduce duplicative supply chain activities within the United States government, including by creating a supply chain risk assessment shared service.” But it offered no specific details or initiatives.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2018/10/dhs-to-use-federal-procurement-to-further-reduce-risks-to-the-supply-chain/

Robotics process automation use across government “is exploding,” Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said at the Shared Services Leadership Coalition RPA conference.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say the agency has been doing well adopting agile development practices and wants to keep that going once its current suite of contracts expire.

A task force focused on reducing cybersecurity risks in the nation’s technology and communications supply chain will meet for the first time in the next few weeks, the Homeland Security Department announced last week.

The Homeland Security Department’s initiatives over the past year to address supply chain risks aren’t even close to hitting a crescendo. But the pace and volume of the drumbeat is distinctly mounting.

Search this Website