The Defense Department is betting that insights from its financial data will help improve its business operations, from optimizing the workforce to divesting of legacy systems.
The Defense Department was supposed to submit a review to Congress by March 1 assessing whether components complied with the guidelines of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. That deadline has been pushed to June.
The Defense Department's unified cybersecurity program is making gains with its first tranche of certifying bodies, but assessments for defense contractors are a ways off.
The governing body in charge of implementing the Defense Department's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program has hired its first CEO in Matthew Travis, former deputy director of the Homeland Security Department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Lauren Knausenberger, the Air Force's CIO, said since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the service had increased focus on telework and improving base connectivity.
House Armed Services Committee chair, Adam Smith's response to Republicans' call for at least a 3% topline defense budget increase is: "How you spend the money is what matters."
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), co-chair of the Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force, said "sometimes the marketplace just doesn't get it right and we, without intending to, create real national security vulnerabilities for ourselves."
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the chairman for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said military services should look for cost-savings and where reinvestments can be made.
Defense industry experts call on lawmakers to reform the bid protest process because it slows the delivery of new solutions -- like JEDI -- that enhance national security.
As the Defense Department looks to buy more services, it's going to need to come up with action plans to better account for spending in future years, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
The Defense Department is still figuring out how to give contractors reciprocity with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program and similar certifications, but the end is close, officials say.
The General Services Administration wants to get ahead with the training and education materials that contracting officers will need as Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification requirements become standard.
Newly reported cybersecurity vulnerabilities inched past 17,000 in 2020, signaling worsening security in the defense industrial base, according to a National Defense Industry Association report.
The Defense Pricing and Contracting Agency recorded more than $16 billion in other transaction agreements in 2020 as part of the Defense Department's response to the pandemic.
A final rule on the Defense Department's unified cybersecurity standard could debut as soon as this summer but implementation hinges on standing up a formal training system.
The Navy will field a task force in March that will deliver recommendations that will lay the ground work for the Navy's enterprise-wide roadmap for implementing DevSecOps.
Army CIO Ray Iyer is shaping a new Army Enterprise Digital Strategy the he will use to change the organization's culture and rein in $2 billion of bloated IT spending.
