infrastructure | The Contracting Education Academy

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/

February 3, 2014 By AMK

Departing PBS chief intends to write about government inefficiencies

Sixteen months after being named to the post, Dorothy Robyn is leaving as head of the Public Buildings Service for the General Services Administration, a job in which she inked a deal with Donald Trump for a luxury hotel and led the search for a new FBI headquarters.

Her replacement is expected to be Norman Dong, who has been serving as acting controller at the Office of Management and Budget, Robyn said.

Robyn came from the Defense Department in September of 2012 to help right the ship after a scandal over convention-related expenses brought down the GSA’s previous leadership. She oversaw public buildings during a time of tightening budgets, prompting her to press agencies to occupy less space and forgo real estate that they did not need.

She and GSA administrator Dan Tangherlini teamed to take better advantage of under-performing government buildings, completing a deal to lease the Old Post Office Pavilion to Trump’s real estate firm and selling the West Heating Plant in Georgetown to a developer affiliated with the Four Seasons.

In an interview she said she was frustrated at the resistance of Congress to invest in cost-saving infrastructure improvements, as well as the accounting policies “ that make it difficult for us to follow best practices in the private sector.”

Rather than take a new job immediately ,Robyn said she would take time off to write about some of the government inefficiencies that she said were strangling the country’s infrastructure improvements and failing to reduce energy usage.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-business/wp/2014/01/29/dorothy-robyn-head-of-public-buildings-for-gsa-steps-down

May 23, 2013 By AMK

Contractors ask GSA to freeze cyber-related regulations

Federal suppliers are urging officials to stop computer security rulemakings for contractors until the government issues blanket cyber guidelines for all key industries in the fall. The argument is not that contractor-specific regulations are bad but that they could potentially conflict with the forthcoming national standards.

President Obama, as part of a February executive order, initiated a voluntary program for safeguarding life-sustaining networks, including energy, health care and water treatment systems. By November, the government must publish a draft set of standard policies and techniques, such as promptly installing antispyware updates. The government also must decide if and how these standards should be incorporated into federal contracts.

But — independently — multiple computer security mandates for contractors already are at various stages of development.

The separate cyber rules for government vendors are “all well intentioned. For the longest time, nobody was paying attention to cybersecurity. Now, everybody is paying attention to cybersecurity,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president for the Professional Services Council, a trade association that represents contractors.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/05/contractors-ask-gsa-freeze-cyber-related-regulations/63244/?oref=nextgov_today_nl

May 25, 2012 By AMK

Agencies told to assume the worst in budget requests

The Obama administration still holds out hope of avoiding the across-the-board budget cuts required under the 2011 Budget Control Act, but it is nonetheless instructing federal agencies to begin preparing their fiscal 2014 budget requests assuming a 5 percent cut in discretionary spending.

Acting Budget Director Jeffrey Zients in a memo to agency heads on Friday said the coming spending plan will build on the Budget Control Act and the fiscal 2013 document’s framework, and hence “must continue to cut lower-priority spending in order to create room for the most effective investments in areas critical to economic growth and job creation, including education, innovation, infrastructure, and research and development.”

Keep reading this article at http://www.govexec.com//management/2012/05/agencies-told-assume-worst-budget-requests/55865/?oref=govexec_today_nl.

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