A new report by the Government Accountability Office calls for new guidance on implementing alternative methods for knowledge-based verification to secure online applications for government benefits. The call comes amid concerns about the 2017 Equifax data breach that targeted personal data of people who applied online for benefits and services, GAO said in the report issued Friday.

In the same year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a guidance restricting agencies from using knowledge-based verification. However, some agencies raised concerns in implementing alternative methods due to problems with high costs, convenience and technological maturity.

“NIST’s guidance does not provide direction to agencies on how to successfully implement alternative identity-proofing methods with currently available technologies for all segments of the public,” GAO said. The watchdog report suggests that NIST update its guidance and assist agencies to adopt new and secure remote identity proofing processes.

The agencies covered by the guidance are the General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Postal Service, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration. GAO said the agencies should also develop plans to strengthen identity proofing to better secure online applications. NIST, SSA, USPS and VA agreed with GAO’s recommendations, while CMS refused to follow the watchdog report.

The U.S. Army is looking to develop a tactical network to streamline integration operations between air and ground units during combat, C4ISRNET reported Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Brian Winski, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told attendees at forum with industry in Nashville, Tenn. that the Army component must be able to communicate effectively over great distances and “violently and decisively exploit developing opportunities on the battlefield.” Other capabilities the network must include are the ability to link intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms and the capacity to launch kinetic and electronic fires over the horizon. 

Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, the Army’s network cross-functional team director, added that the service intends to deploy beyond-line-of sight satellite communications technology or alternative capabilities such as low-Earth orbit satellites to support “assured network transport in a contested environment”.

Aside from the tactical network, the Army also wants to field future vertical lift aircraft designed to collaborate with unmanned systems.

Fred Kennedy, director of Space Development Agency, wants to lease commercial services to support the agency’s proposed satellite network in low-Earth orbit, National Defense Magazine reported Friday. 

“I would be very happy to simply lease commercial services from these mega providers,” he said at a recent event of Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington, D.C. “There may be things we need to do with that network that will not quite translate to commercial market, but the more that I can leverage commercial, the better off we are.”

Kennedy announced his first priority at SDA would focus on placing a system of small, low-cost satellites in space by 2022, which will support the agency’s future systems. The agency hopes to begin on-orbit demonstrations in 2020. The director also wants to speed up the currently slow acquisition process and to cut costs of developing space assets. 

“Let’s move away from an exquisite approach that gets us capability in decades to something that might give us some less exquisite capability on the order of a year or two,” Kennedy said. 

Congress has yet to confirm funding for SDA. The Pentagon proposed $150 million for the new agency for fiscal year 2020. 

The U.S. Marshals Service launched a project focused on using software to identify needs for correction in agency procedures, Federal News Netowrk reported Friday. Donald Washington, director of the Marshals Service, told attendees at a Department of Justice event that software developers will team with operational personnel to map out agency operations and pinpoint inefficiencies as part of the “capture project”. 

Washington noted that the project comes as part of efforts to implement new ideas to organizational procedures and “determine how best to run the agency going forward.” The Marshals Service is also working on other personnel expansion initiatives such as adding more classes to its academy to speed up the entry of trainees into the workforce.

A joint report by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the General Services Administration shows that the number of federal agency-backed prize competitions listed on Challenge.gov has increased from 744 to 875 since the 2016 study, FCW reported Friday. 

The challenges authorized under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 have led to the emergence of startups and offered agencies a mass of examples to launch their own initiatives, according to the report. OSTP Director Kelvin Droegemeier said Friday at GSA’s Open Innovation Summit freeing up data is “foundational” to federally sponsored competitions and data science that CitizenScience.gov and Challenge.gov present.

Jennifer Shieh, assistant director of entrepreneurship at OSTP, said the report marks the first time to assess crowdsourcing activities. The study includes data on 86 crowdsourcing and citizen science efforts reported by 14 federal agencies. Droegemeier said citizen science and crowdsourcing initiatives that leverage government data are instrumental in driving tech research and development. 

The Department of Defense intends to implement new cybersecurity standards for government contractors by January 2020, FedScoop reported Friday.

DoD will work with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute to develop the proposed standards – Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification.

The department will tap third-party companies to assess the contractors’ compliance with the standards and establish a cyber education and training center. The proposed five-level standards will merge the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cyber guidance with industry and academic organizations’ recommendations.

Once implemented, the level of cybersecurity will be specified on all solicitations for contracts.

Katie Arrington, special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense acquisition for cyber, announced the proposed standards on Thursday during a Professional Services Council conference and called on the industry to collaborate with the government to ensure data security.

President Trump signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to assess the functions of advisory committees established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The administration aims to remove at least one third of existing committees across the government, according to the directive issued Friday. 

Agencies should evaluate each committee based on accomplished objectives, current primary functions and cost of operations. The Office of Management and Budget will oversee the evaluation. The order requires OMB to collect plans from agency leaders on their committees by Aug. 1 and to submit a recommendation to White House in September.

Agencies can request a waiver from OMB to retain certain advisory committees. The director of OMB should grant a waiver if a committee appears necessary to support essential services, for program delivery or based on public requirements. Trump wants to retain not more than 350 advisory committees.