OMB | The Contracting Education Academy

November 4, 2019 By cs

Is Congress in the dark on supply chain risk?

Top senators on the Senate Homeland Security Committee have warned the Office of Management and Budget that IT professionals in Congress and the federal judiciary may not be getting all the supply chain risk information they need to secure their computer systems and networks as they make acquisitions.

The senators wrote to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney ″urging” the Federal Acquisition Security Council (FASC) to develop a strategic plan for sharing supply chain security information with Congress and the judiciary. The letter is signed by Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.; Ranking Member Gary Peters, D-Mich.; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

The FASC is responsible for increasing information sharing within the federal government regarding supply chain risk and creating guidelines and practices for risk management. The FASC distributes the intelligence community’s supply change risk management (SCRM) threat analysis to federal civilian agencies making acquisitions decisions. But the senators said that the information from FASC is not reaching the other two branches of government and supply chain solutions that work for executive agencies don’t necessarily work for the “whole of government.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fifthdomain.com/civilian/omb/2019/10/11/is-congress-in-the-dark-on-supply-chain-risk/

October 15, 2019 By cs

How OMB can make ‘agile government’ not an oxymoron

Over the last 18 months, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) painstakingly went over nearly every federal technology policy that came out in the last 20 years with an eye toward modernization.

Every new policy, whether for cloud or identity management or data center consolidation and optimization, that came from that effort included a list of rescinded regulations which had grown old and held no value any more.

The most recent update to the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative rescinded four policies, some dating back 12 years.

The identity management policy from May terminated five policies, of which some went back to 2004.

As you can see, OMB did more than a little spring cleaning.

This exercise over the last two years or more has led to a new way of thinking about policymaking. OMB and other agencies are taking a page out of the agile software development playbook and applying this methodology to policymaking.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/09/how-omb-can-make-agile-government-not-an-oxymoron/

August 29, 2019 By cs

Agencies faced 31,000 cyber incidents last year, but gave up no major breaches

The total number of incidents the government experienced last year dropped 12% from 2017, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Federal agencies didn’t experience a single “major” cybersecurity incident in 2018, marking the first time in three years the government avoided such a severe digital incursion, according to a recent White House report.

Not one of the more than 31,000 cybersecurity incidents that agencies faced last year reached the “major incident” threshold, which is defined as an event that affects more than 100,000 individuals or otherwise causes “demonstrable harm” to the U.S, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The government fell victim to five major incidents in 2017 and 16 in 2016.

Overall, the total number of cyber events the government experienced dropped 12% from 2017, OMB officials told Congress in their annual report on the Federal Information Security Management Act.

While OMB called this downward trend “encouraging,” they warned that agencies shouldn’t let down their guard. Phishing and other email-based attacks remain a popular strategy for online bad actors, and the government is still struggling to attribute and label the thousands of attacks every year, officials said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/08/agencies-faced-31000-cyber-incidents-last-year-gave-no-major-breaches/159290/

August 20, 2019 By cs

GSA’s acquisition strategy for new contracting writing system surprises some vendors

A little over two weeks ago at an event hosted by AFFIRM, Alan Thomas, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration (GSA), promised to have the acquisition strategy for a new contract writing system completed in a week or so.

Thomas’ group delivered on that promise, but the decision to move the Contract Acquisition Life-Cycle Management (CALM) system under the yet-to-be awarded IT services procurement vehicle known as COMET may have been a bit surprising.

Industry sources, who all requested anonymity in order to talk about a procurement they may be bidding on, say while in many ways it makes sense to move CALM under COMET, it’s also a decision that should’ve come more than a month ago and is a little frustrating.

Industry sources say some companies were planning on bidding on the contract writing system that could be a proof-of-concept for one that is eventually offered governmentwide. But those same companies may not have bid on the CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation (COMET) vehicle, but would’ve if they had known about GSA’s plan to not issue CALM as a standalone procurement or through another existing vehicle like Alliant 2.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/08/gsas-acquisition-strategy-for-new-contracting-writing-system-surprises-some-vendors/

August 15, 2019 By AMK

OMB, GSA to oversee ‘technology business management’ buys

The federal government is taking concrete steps to require agencies to use Technology Business Management (TBM) methodology and data standards to measure IT costs and create a cross-agency framework for understanding IT spending.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) are teaming up to create a review board to supervise agency procurement of TBM tools and services. Agencies are required to adopt TBM and to go through the coming Task Order Review Board (TORB) as part of the acquisition process.

At stake is how $80 billion to $90 billion in federal IT spending is measured and managed.

The TORB is set up to exercise considerable authority over TBM acquisition, providing technical expertise and documents to support procurement and ultimately approval to proceed with an acquisition or revisions to an agency’s TBM plans “to address deficiencies or concerns,” according to contracting documents.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/08/07/tbm-review-board-mazmanian.aspx?m=1

Over the last 18 months, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) painstakingly went over nearly every federal technology policy that came out in the last 20 years with an eye toward modernization.

The total number of incidents the government experienced last year dropped 12% from 2017, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

A little over two weeks ago at an event hosted by AFFIRM, Alan Thomas, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration (GSA), promised to have the acquisition strategy for a new contract writing system completed in a week or so.

The federal government is taking concrete steps to require agencies to use Technology Business Management (TBM) methodology and data standards to measure IT costs and create a cross-agency framework for understanding IT spending.

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