infrastructure | The Contracting Education Academy

March 19, 2019 By AMK

Army bets big on service contracts to fix aging IT

The Army’s information technology is too old, and modernization is too slow.

So the service needs a “fundamentally different” strategy that relies heavily on the private sector, Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford said the Army has to start relying on contractors to own and operate IT on the Army’s behalf — what he calls “enterprise IT as a service” — and start moving on-base IT to Defense Department clouds.

“Around 70 percent overall of that [IT] infrastructure — in the case of voice, it’s probably as high as 90 percent — is at or near end of life,” Crawford told the Association of the US Army. “[It] would take beyond the year 2030 — if we stayed on the current path — to modernize. We ran into one brick wall after another [asking], ‘how do we get speed,’” Crawford continued. So, about six months ago, he and Lt. Gen. Steve Fogarty, head of Army Cyber Command, realized “we needed to do something fundamentally different.”

This effort’s urgent because the aging IT on Army bases can’t protect data from high-end hackers, provide the bandwidth for new augmented-reality training systems or support combat units waging high-intensity warfare against great powers (i.e., Russia and China), Crawford said. “This reform and modernization initiative,” he said, “is less about saving money than it is about increasing operational effectiveness throughout the force.”

Keep reading this article at: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/army-bets-big-on-service-contracts-to-fix-aging-it/

November 20, 2018 By AMK

Supply chain task force looks to keep ‘lemons’ out of the federal IT ecosystem

The Department of Homeland Security announced the roll out of its supply chain security task force on Information and Communications Technology.

At a Nov. 1 meeting of the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, a DHS official provided more details on the group’s composition and mission.

The task force will consist of approximately 60 members — drawn equally from the federal government, the tech sector and the communications sector, according to Emile Monette, a cybersecurity strategist at DHS and co-chair. Monette told FCW after the meeting that “most” of the group’s membership has been solidified, but that DHS is planning to provide more specifics in the next few weeks.

An executive committee, roughly half the full task force’s size, will meet in mid-November to begin laying out priorities and setting up work streams, such as tweaking to Federal Acquisition Regulation rules requiring the government to purchase certain IT and communications products from the original manufacturer or authorized resellers.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2018/11/01/supply-chain-dhs-lemons.aspx

May 10, 2017 By AMK

How do state and local programs fare in the FY 2017 federal spending deal?

Legislation has emerged to keep the federal government running through September. But tougher negotiations could be on the horizon for the upcoming budget cycle.

Funding levels for many of the federal programs state and local governments rely on are largely unchanged from the previous fiscal year in the roughly $1 trillion spending deal congressional lawmakers have reached.

The 1,665-page bill marks a rare compromise between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. If passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, the legislation would keep the federal government running for the rest of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney during a briefing described the fiscal 2017 bill as “really solid” for the Trump administration and said it “lines up perfectly with the president’s priorities.”

But debates about fiscal year 2018 spending are on the horizon. And those negotiations could get tough. In the “skinny budget” proposal Trump sent to Congress earlier this year he proposed cuts that were steep and sweeping.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.routefifty.com/finance/2017/05/2017-federal-spending-deal-state-local-programs/137478/

Also see related article, “Trump’s Proposed Budget Cuts Would Be Hard Hits for State and Local Governments,” at: http://www.routefifty.com/finance/2017/03/trump-budget-state-local-government-impacts/136200/

January 5, 2017 By AMK

Federal procurement: The road ahead under Trump

President-elect Trump is about to be sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States.

Between now and then (and continuing into the first few months of his presidency), he and federal agencies will select new leadership and establish their policy priorities.

Though the Trump administration has spoken little about its acquisition policy, the transition and campaign websites provide some insight about the acquisition agenda that the new administration will pursue, as well as other policies that may impact government contractors and federal acquisition personnel.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2016/12/16/insights-burton-trump-transition-acquisition.aspx

December 19, 2016 By AMK

ATDC graduate wins $18.8 million Air Force contract to prevent, stop, and hunt adversaries

Endgame, a 2010 graduate of the Advanced Technology Development Center’s Signature program and leading endpoint security platform to close the protection gap against advanced attackers, announced it won an $18.8 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to safeguard networks for its elite Cyber Protection Teams.

atdc ATDC is Georgia Tech’s incubator that provides coaching, connections, and a community to foster the development of technology startups in Georgia.

Endgame first deployed its platform to the Air Force in December 2015 to automate the hunt against global attackers. As part of the current agreement, the Air Force will receive Endgame’s endpoint detection and response (EDR) platform to prevent, detect, and hunt for advanced threats to protect critical infrastructure.

“The Air Force is the gold standard for cybersecurity innovation in the United States, and the extension of our partnership proves that the Endgame platform provides significant value for their security teams,” said Nate Fick, CEO of Endgame. “As attacks become more polymorphic, Endgame’s unique ability to anticipate never-before-seen adversary techniques will help the Air Force better prevent, detect, and hunt attackers before they cause damage or loss.”

Today’s attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated, and despite an estimated $75 billion per year spent on security, attackers dwell undetected in networks for an average of 146 days – exposing organizations to massive theft and business disruption. Unfortunately, most security teams are forced to wait for prior threat intelligence – known as indicators of compromise (IOCs) or signatures – to determine whether their systems are infected. This strategy has failed; waiting and searching for known threats leaves organizations vulnerable for too long and leaves them unable to protect themselves and their critical assets.

Endgame’s EDR platform detects attacks at their earliest stage without prior threat intelligence. Endgame developed its methodology by working with organizations running the largest cyber-operations in the world, including the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community.

Source: http://atdc.org/news-from-our-companies/endgame-wins-18-8-million-air-force-contract-prevent-stop-hunt-adversaries/

The Army’s information technology is too old, and modernization is too slow.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the roll out of its supply chain security task force on Information and Communications Technology.

Legislation has emerged to keep the federal government running through September. But tougher negotiations could be on the horizon for the upcoming budget cycle.

President-elect Trump is about to be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

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President-elect Trump is about to be sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States.