Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Holding government contractors responsible for cybersecurity is trickier than it sounds

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The federal government wants to hold defense contractors accountable for the cybersecurity of their supply chains but that’s no easy feat, experts said recently.

On March 26th, industry representatives told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee about attempting to tackle cyber threats as a federal contractor. Much of the hearing was focused on one specific issue: increasingly complex levels of supply chains make it difficult for prime contractor to ensure all subcontractors are upholding cybersecurity protections. And that ever-lengthening chain increases the possibility of compromised information or cyberattacks.

“I don’t know why we don’t hold the larger contractors who are responsible for the contract to make sure the subcontractors they are hiring have protections,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said. “Somebody has to be held accountable.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/03/holding-government-contractors-responsible-cybersecurity-trickier-it-sounds/155862/

5 ‘bold’ recommendations to improve DoD acquisition

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Congress and the Defense Department are paying close attention to recommendations coming from the Section 809 panel to change the military’s acquisition process.

The House and Senate Armed Service committees added every idea from the group’s May 2017 interim report as well as many of the recommendations from the panel’s January 2018 volume one report to recent Defense authorization bills, said David Drabkin, the panel’s chairman.

“During this process, we have met frequently with both the House Armed Services Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and on occasion we have met with the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee and Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Defense, and have worked closely with the department as you can see on the panel, three of the department’s acquisition executives have been a part of the panel itself,” Drabkin said Tuesday during the roll out of the volume 3 recommendations in Washington, D.C. “We can’t assure Congress will accept our work, but we have an indication that they are very interested. As you look around the room, you can see members from the staff of the HASC and SASC sitting in the meeting today.”

So with the congressionally-mandated group of public-private sector experts issuing their third and final set of recommendations on Jan. 15th detailing 58 new ones across 13 sections, the likelihood of many of these proposals advancing is good. In all, the panel made 93 recommendations, provide implementation plans and legislative language across more than 1,000 pages and three volumes of work since 2016.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2019/01/5-bold-recommendations-to-improve-dod-acquisition/

See the 809 Panel’s final report here: 

See the 809 Panel’s earlier reports here: https://section809panel.org/media/updates/ 

Software review provisions proposed by Senate Armed Services Committee could have significant impact on DoD contractors

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As the Senate approaches the end of its debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019, provisions of the bill regarding access to and review of information technology code deserve close attention.  These sections, if enacted, would significantly impact Department of Defense contractors and also would affect matters associated with investments subject to review by U.S. national security agencies.

As drafted, the provisions could expose current and prospective contractors to intrusive scrutiny and significant risks.  They lack clarity on key definitions, leaving the precise scope of those risks unclear.  We summarize major issues and concerns below.  We expect these provisions to receive scrutiny during the House-Senate conference on the NDAA over the summer.

Synopsis of the Proposed Legislation

Three sections of the Senate’s version of the NDAA, which passed the Senate Armed Services Committee in May, would establish new rules designed to mitigate “risks posed by providers of information technology with obligations to foreign governments.”  Those risks involve the access that foreign governments may have to code in products or services that are offered to the Department of Defense.  The provisions also impose new disclosure requirements on the efforts of a prospective vendor to obtain a license under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) or the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (“ITAR”).

The pending legislation would require proactive disclosure of those matters, and would impose an ongoing duty to supplement those disclosures during the period of performance on the contract.  The Secretary of Defense would be authorized to assess and mitigate any resulting national security risks through contractual provisions or other performance requirements.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/06/senate-armed-services-committee-proposes-expansive-unclear-software-review-provisions/

Contractors oppose proposed limit on federal bid protests

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As the Senate Armed Services Committee last week began its markup of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, a contractors group was pushing committee leaders to reject a Pentagon proposal to curb time-consuming bid protests.

Seeking to eliminate what some senators call “frivolous” protests and what acquisition officials call “forum shopping,” the Defense Department this spring pressed for limiting the ability of contractors who unsuccessfully sought an award and are rejected by the Government Accountability Office to then continue their protest at the Court of Federal Claims. The plan would limit the so-called “second bite at the apple” in the court to within 10 days of knowing (or when they should have known) they had the basis for a protest.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/05/contractors-oppose-proposed-limit-federal-bid-protests/148368/ 

Defense bill stripped of language overturning contractor Executive Orders

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The election of Donald Trump had a surprise impact on this month’s House-Senate conference meetings on the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

One of the main sticking points in the bill was whether to include House language on contractor “religious freedom” introduced in May by Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., which critics feared would allow contractors to fire LGBT employees protected under a 2014 executive order from President Obama.

But senior Senate Armed Services Committee aides told reporters Tuesday that “since the election, other paths have opened up” for addressing that executive order and the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” rule, which contractors have opposed. The bill’s language on religious freedom and fair pay has therefore been removed from the compromise bill.The [National Defense Authorization Act] was always an imperfect remedy,” the aides said the night before the long-awaited conference report and merged bill were set to be posted.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/11/defense-bill-stripped-language-overturning-contractor-executive-orders/133512/

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