- The Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Safety Review Board will look into an alleged China-linked hack of U.S. telecom networks. DHS confirmed the board’s next review will examine intrusions connected to the hacking group “Salt Typhoon.” The group has reportedly targeted the communications of U.S. political figures as well as a wiretapping system used by federal law enforcement. U.S. agencies are already investigating the incidents. The Cyber Safety Review Board typically studies the circumstances that lead to major cyber incidents for lessons learned and recommendations.
- Going forward, the General Services Administration (GSA) will evaluate AbilityOne contractors under the Contractor Past Performance Reporting System or C-PARS. Jeff Koses, GSA’s senior procurement executive, signed a deviation to the Federal Acquisition Regulations yesterday instituting this change. The FAR said agencies shall not evaluate performance for contracts awarded under AbilityOne procedures. But Koses said this is an outdated concept and including AbilityOne contractors in CPARS will give them more ability to compete and win contracts. The Defense Department issued a similar FAR deviation in 2013. GSA spends more than 180 million dollars a year with AbiltyOne contractors.
- If you plan on voting by mail the Postal Service (USPS) recommends sending back your ballot today. USPS is delivering nearly all mail-in ballots on time so far. But it’s urging voters to return their ballots seven days out from when their election office needs to receive them. Voters have already cast more than 44 million ballots ahead of Election Day. Just over half of those early votes are from mail-in ballots.
- Letter carrier groups are pushing for a ‘no’ vote on their union’s tentative contract with the Postal Service. Letter carriers across the country said they’re frustrated with the terms of a tentative contract negotiated by the National Association of Letter Carriers. The tentative agreement includes 1.3% pay raises for each year of the three-year contract and semiannual cost of living adjustments. NALC National President Brian Renfroe said the tentative agreement is the best deal possible. USPS reported a 6-and-a-half billion dollar net loss last year.
- The Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) upcoming acquisition called ModEl, or Modernization and Engineering Lifecycle Refresh, will focus on customer engineering, professional services, capital planning and telecommunications professional services. While the agency is still in the process of understanding the scope of the project, contract value for ModEl could be anywhere from $250 million to $1 billion. DISA’s J6 C4 will lead the effort. The agency plans to use a competitive teaming arrangement — an approach DISA has not often employed in the past. An industry day is scheduled for Nov.11, with the final Request for Proposal release date expected in the second quarter of fiscal 2025.
- The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to focus on modernizing the cyber perimeter. DISA’s director of the cybersecurity and analytics directorate says modernizing the cyber perimeter is one of the big picture concern areas for the agency. “I’ve heard some folks that I consider kind of zero trust zealots, say that they don’t believe that there’s a reason for a cyber perimeter. They don’t see what we see every day.” But while the agency understands the threat, it lacks visibility into the latest technical solutions and capabilities that could strengthen perimeter defenses.
- For the first time in years, two federal leadership councils are coming together. The Chief Human Capital Officers Council and the Performance Improvement Council will host a joint meeting on Nov. 7 to discuss how the federal workforce can better support agency performance goals. Kirsty Daphnis, the federal workforce branch chief at OMB, said the meeting will focus on how agencies can align their workforce to achieve their mission goals. Daphnis, speaking at ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation Conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania yesterday, said among the topics the councils will take on include improving organizational health and performance and how the two groups can work together within their agencies going forward.
- The Defense Department (DoD) is out with a new open source intelligence strategy. DoD is putting a major emphasis on artificial intelligence and data science under its new five-year OSINT strategy. The document released by the Defense Intelligence Agency earlier this month lays out DoD’s approach to the evolving OSINT space. The strategy said AI technologies will be crucial to managing and analyzing a constantly growing stream of open source data. DIA also wants to make OSINT a premier intelligence discipline by institutionalizing training, tradecraft and career paths.
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