The U.S. Army plans to deploy an authenticator app that will provide an alternative for personnel seeking to log into systems without a Common Access Card, FedScoop reported Monday. The Army is continuing a pilot program to assess the capacity of the YubiKeys app in an effort to expand system access to users without a physical card or token.

YubiKeys makes use of USB tokens and multifactor authentication to verify user credentials and enable remote log-ins through devices and mobile phones. The service is continuing testing activities and is slated to conclude the pilot effort with over 1,000 participants this month.

“Multifactor authentication for the Army is a game changer for our Soldiers,” Lee James, project director for enterprise services at the Army.  “It allows Soldiers the convenience and capability of conducting business in a secure way from their own devices and on their own time.”

If successful, the pilot will result in additional purchases of YubiKeys USB tokens which may be used to allow log-ins during remote training and emergency response activities. YubiKeys will not serve as a replacement for CAC, according to the report.

The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Cybersecurity Unit has published a document that addresses the legality of certain intelligence-gathering approaches. The unit tackled methods that utilize online "dark web" forums where contributors discuss computer crimes and sell illegally obtained data, DOJ said.

Organizations that intend to access these forums may do so in a legal manner by using credentials that do not steal the identities of other people. Forum operators would provide these legitimate credentials. The use of stolen credentials and other unauthorized means may violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other related roles.

Private entities may conduct intelligence gathering in these forums, but may be subject to illegal concerns if they take part in dark web activities. Dark web forums also feature services that are considered illegal. Illegal offerings include stolen passwords, credit card accounts and other means of unauthorized information access.

The National Science Foundation will invest $90 million in funds to support an initiative that seeks to develop a framework that will scale high-performance computing platforms and applications, HPCwire reported Monday.

The Principles and Practice of Scalable Systems program aims to address scalability gaps with artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches. It will also validate the distributed trait of applications and accommodate proof-of-principles for scalable and secure applications, tools and systems.

"We are now entering a new era, where achieving the same pace of transformative computing innovation will require a refamiliarization of different communities—algorithms, hardware, networking, software, systems—with each other’s domains and the development of new abstractions and paradigms to handle the domain-specific challenges we are already confronting,” said Rance Cleaveland, director at NSF's computing and communications foundations division.

NSF has started accepting submissions for the initiative's planning phase, while proposals for large projects will be entertained in 2021. Proposals for large projects are required to employ full-stack approaches within various areas. Fifteen projects may receive grants up to $80 million for the project phase of the program.

The Government Accountability Office has found that while the National Nuclear Security Administration improved its management of weapons stockpile modernization efforts since 2003, it is yet to address challenges in cost and schedule management.

GAO said in a report published Tuesday that the Department of Energy component made improvements such as the implementation of independent cost estimates for its Uranium Processing Facility effort. However, the watchdog noted that NNSA must assess its modernization programs to better align efforts to future funding. 

According to GAO, NNSA could improve its management of nuclear modernization programs by including complete scopes of work and schedule estimates.

"GAO continues to believe that presenting options to align its portfolio of programs to potential future budgets could help Congress and NNSA better understand NNSA's priorities and trade-offs that may need to be undertaken in the future," the watchdog said.

In 2019, GAO recommended that NNSA procure newly produced explosives for future weapons programs. The agency also reported last month that NNSA had trouble managing its W87-1 warhead program, resulting in doubts that the agency can meet the required number of manufactured plutonium weapon cores on time.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worked with NASA to restore the Deep Space Climate Observatory or DSCOVR imagery satellite that went through some operational issues.

NOAA said Monday that it co-developed a flight software patch with NASA to address a technical glitch that had the satellite out-of-commission for approximately nine months. DSCOVR works to capture full-disk Earth images in support of cloud, vegetation and atmospheric monitoring. The satellite is also the nation's main source of real-time data on solar wind.

"Bringing DSCOVR operational again shows the unique skills and adaptability of our NOAA and NASA engineers and the care we are taking to get the maximum life from an aging asset," said Steve Volz, assistant NOAA administrator for the agency's Satellite and Information Service.

NOAA launched DSCOVR in early 2015 as the first operational U.S. satellite operating in deep space. NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer provided space weather data during DSCOVR's nine-month absence.