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DTS Founder Edward Tuorinsky Proposes ‘Robust Response’ to Ensure Compliance With NIST SP 800-171 Revision
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DTS Founder Edward Tuorinsky Proposes ‘Robust Response’ to Ensure Compliance With NIST SP 800-171 Revision

A “robust response” to the upcoming release of the third revision of National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-171 must feature three elements, according to Edward Tuorinsky, the founder of and managing principal at cyber, consulting and management services provider DTS.

Organizations must first evaluate the compliance of their security posture with the revised special publication’s new assessment objectives. Revision 2 had a total of 320 assessment objectives while Revision 3 brings that number up to 390, Tuorinsky wrote in a Thursday Federal News Network article.

Organizations must then prepare a plan of action and milestones, or POAM, that would close the gaps identified in the initial evaluation. The POAM would have to outline the tasks that have to be undertaken and propose a schedule for the work.

The third element involves preparing a new system security plan that would provide documentation proving that an organization meets Revision 3’s 390 assessment objectives. These objectives are spread across 95 security controls, down from 110 in Revision 2. In order for an organization to be compliant with a given control, all associated assessment objectives must be met.

Tuorinsky says an organization can reuse elements from a prior system security plan based on Revision 2 and simply edit them to align with the requirements of Revision 3.

NIST 800-171 rev 3 is expected to come out in late April or May.

DTS Founder Edward Tuorinsky Proposes 'Robust Response' to Ensure Compliance With NIST SP 800-171 Revision

Edward Tuorinsky will join other cyber experts, government leaders and industry visionaries in speaking about the dynamic and evolving role of cyber in the public sector at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit, which will take place in June. Register now to attend this important event!

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DHA Requests Commercial Technology Proposals to Transform Military Health System
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DHA Requests Commercial Technology Proposals to Transform Military Health System

The Defense Health Agency is seeking commercial platforms designed to provide a human-centered patient experience for its beneficiaries and improve the collection of patient interactions and data in the Military Health System Information Portal.

DHA’s patient care transformation initiative is focused on three lines of effort: improving patient care, developing provider-supported technology in the Health Ecosystem and acquiring data management support services, according to a notice posted by the Defense Innovation Unit.

In the first LOE, DHA is looking for a commercial technology designed to provide beneficiaries frictionless access to care and services, enable seamless integration with the existing electronic health record and allow interoperability with wearables and devices.

The agency also plans to expand the Health Ecosystem to include applications for scheduling, chart search, virtual nursing telemetry, remote patient monitoring and hospital command centers to reduce administrative burdens on its workforce.

For the final LOE, DHA is inviting the industry to propose technologies designed to allow MHS users to access, manipulate and present patient-specific health data to inform decision-making.

Interested parties have until May 1 to submit responses.

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Madelaine Sumera Joins Mobilize Vision as SVP of Public Sector
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Madelaine Sumera Joins Mobilize Vision as SVP of Public Sector

Madelaine Sumera has been appointed senior vice president of public sector at Mobilize VISION, a software development company.

She announced the move in a LinkedIn post in which she said she is “excited to join the Mobilize VISION family.”

Sumera is a seasoned technology leader with experience in both government and industry organizations. She began her career in the U.S. Air Force, where she served in medical roles for two decades, and later became medical director the the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Chemical and Biological Detection and Diagnostics Division.

After leaving the agency, she assumed the position of deputy director of Penn State University’s Applied Biological and Biosecurity Research Laboratory.

Sumera most recently served as vice president of business development and communications at Advanced Technology International, a role in which she assessed new business areas, led client and partner relationships and determined current and future market opportunities.

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VA Seeks Vendors to Support T&E Work on Modernized Electronic Health Record Platform
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VA Seeks Vendors to Support T&E Work on Modernized Electronic Health Record Platform

The Department of Veterans Affairs seeks to determine the availability of contractors that can meet the requirements of the Independent Enterprise Testing and Support Services Contract.

According to a request for information posted Tuesday on SAM.gov, the purpose of the IETSS contract is to provide support for the testing community overseen by the VA Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office Program, which works to ensure the seamless deployment of and transition to the Oracle Health EHR platform.

Work under the contract covers project management, test and evaluation support, testing and technology support, test systems engineering and implementation support and test process and quality management support.

IETSS will be a hybrid firm-fixed-price and time-and-materials contract. It will come with a 12-month base period of performance and four 12-month options and feature an optional transition support period at the end of the period of performance.

The RFI invites interested parties to answer questions regarding their experience and areas of expertise. Comments are also being sought regarding the contract’s performance work statement.

Responses must be submitted by May 3.

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John Bradford Wiegmann Nominated as ODNI General Counsel
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John Bradford Wiegmann Nominated as ODNI General Counsel

President Joe Biden has nominated John Bradford Wiegmann, deputy assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice, to serve as general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In his current position at DOJ, Wiegmann leads the national security division’s efforts to create and implement policies related to intelligence, counterterrorism, nation-state threats and counterespionage and manages appeals in national security-related prosecutions, the White House said Thursday.

His government career included time as assistant legal adviser at the State Department, deputy legal adviser at the National Security Council and special counsel to the general counsel at the Department of Defense.

Wiegmann focused on civil litigation during his tenure at Washington, D.C.-based law firm Shea & Gardner and served as a law clerk for Judge Patrick Higginbotham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The deputy assistant attorney general is a summa cum laude graduate of Duke University and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School.

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NASA Eyes 2028 Launch for Dragonfly Rotorcraft Mission
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NASA Eyes 2028 Launch for Dragonfly Rotorcraft Mission

NASA has confirmed the mission of the Dragonfly rotorcraft to Saturn’s moon Titan, allowing the mission to advance to the completion of the final design phase.

NASA said Tuesday the mission was confirmed a year after the mission team passed all the technical requirements and standards of the preliminary design review.

The Dragonfly spacecraft will have eight rotors and is expected to arrive at Titan in 2034 to look for prebiotic chemical processes on Saturn’s moon.

“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”

The Dragonfly mission is the fourth mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program and will have a total lifecycle cost of about $3.35 billion and is expected to launch by July 2028.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory oversees the design and development of Dragonfly.

Aside from research centers within NASA, APL’s partners in the mission are Lockheed Martin, Malin Space Science Systems, Honeybee Robotics, Penn State University and space agencies in Germany, France and Japan.

NSF Announces Convergence Accelerator Expansion to 10 Regions
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NSF Announces Convergence Accelerator Expansion to 10 Regions

The National Science Foundation is expanding its research and development accelerator program to 10 regions nationwide to expand the program’s reach and fully utilize the nation’s geography of innovation.

Over the next three years, the NSF Convergence Accelerator program will expand to 10 geographic regions: the Northwest, West, Southwest, Mountain, Midwest, South Central, Central, Southeast, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, the agency said Wednesday.

The 10 new Convergence Accelerators will facilitate partnerships among cross-domain researchers, practitioners and stakeholders to address current and future regional economic and societal challenges.

“The expansion of the NSF Convergence Accelerator will allow NSF to more fully harness the geography of innovation by increasing the concentration, proximity and diversity of NSF-funded researchers and practitioners, and by scaling the delivery of use-inspired solutions to benefit every part of the country,” said Erwin Gianchandani, assistant director for technology, innovation and partnerships at NSF.

The first stage of the expansion events is scheduled to begin in the Midwest region in May.

NSF expects to conclude the expansion program in the West region in 2027.

X Development, DIU Prototyping AI-Powered Disaster Response Awareness & Analysis Technology
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X Development, DIU Prototyping AI-Powered Disaster Response Awareness & Analysis Technology

Research and development company X Development, a part of Alphabet, is working on an artificial intelligence-powered prototype geolocation and georectification technology meant to enhance the natural disaster response awareness and analysis capabilities of the National Guard.

The Defense Innovation Unit said Wednesday that the prototype, dubbed Bellwether, uses AI to identify the positioning of Civil Air Patrol aerial images it has ingested and identify and label critical infrastructure contained within them.

Bellwether is able to establish a match even when the CAP image shows heavy damage or changes to the landscape.

According to Georgia Air National Guard Master Sgt. Kenneth Houck, the prototype reduces the amount of time spent doing CAP imagery analysis from days to seconds, meaning, “the Guard can now react faster than ever in the critical moments after a natural disaster.”

For his part, DIU Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Remote Sensing Nirav Patel touted Bellwether’s ability to make sense even of aerial images taken from different angles, which can help reduce the amount of time needed to respond to those in need.

Bellwether is the result of a solicitation issued by the DIU on behalf of the National Guard in 2022 for AI-powered technologies that can process electro-optical aerial images.

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CISA & Partner Agencies Issue Guidance on Defending US Election Infrastructure Against Foreign Influence Threats
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CISA & Partner Agencies Issue Guidance on Defending US Election Infrastructure Against Foreign Influence Threats

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have released guidance concerning the tactics used by foreign threat actors when conducting influence operations against the U.S.

CISA said Wednesday that these operations might not only be used to affect discourse, policies and decisions in the U.S. but to target election infrastructure as well.

Many of the tactics tackled by the document, titled “Securing Election Infrastructure Against the Tactics of Foreign Malign Influence Operations,” are not new but are made easier to employ due to generative artificial intelligence, the government agency noted.

The document also offers examples of the tactics and offers recommendations to election infrastructure stakeholders on how to mitigate the threats.

Commenting on the release of the document, CISA Senior Advisor Cait Conley underscored her agency’s commitment to helping officials defend democratic processes, adding, “We will continue to work with the election community to ensure they have the tools and information they need to run safe and secure elections in 2024 and beyond.”

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SpaceWERX, Aerospace Corporation Launch Tech Advancement Initiative for Small Businesses
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SpaceWERX, Aerospace Corporation Launch Tech Advancement Initiative for Small Businesses

The U.S. Space Force’s innovation arm SpaceWERX has collaborated with the Aerospace Corporation, which operates a space-focused federally funded research and development center, to create a new initiative aimed at providing start-up companies access to necessary resources to advance their technology offerings.

The partnership will enable early-stage companies to test and mature their technologies in a 100,000-square-foot “Technology Readiness Level,” or TRL, bootcamp laboratory in El Segundo, California, Air Force Materiel Command said Wednesday.

“At SpaceWERX, we actively invest in and nurture these ideas to foster their growth and development, with the goal of transitioning them into programs for both warfighters and the commercial market,” said Arthur Grijalva, director of SpaceWERX.

The first cohort of the bootcamp will focus on in-space servicing, dynamic space operations and assembly and manufacturing.

“The bootcamp gives small businesses access to the decades of experience Aerospace Corporation has in the space domain,” said Maj. Jareth Lamb, military deputy of SpaceWERX. “This is another tool SpaceWERX is adding to help companies be successful and transition technologies.”

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