The Defense Department may now officially exclude contractors or subcontractors from receiving information technology contracts based on the risk their supply chain poses to national security systems.
The authority comes from earlier national defense authorization bills and it expires in September 2018. In an interim rule published Nov. 18 in the Federal Register, DoD says the authority applies to the acquisition of any IT product or service, including commercial items, so long as the contractor in question operates a supply chain that poses a significant risk to a particular national security system.
Although the clause permitting the DoD to exclude contractors will now be a part of all defense IT contractors, the interim rule notes that it can apply only to national security systems, and then only to items “the loss of integrity of which could result in a supply chain risk to the entire system.”
Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/dod-enacts-rule-excluding-contractors-based-supply-chain-risk/2013-11-21
