The Department of Homeland Security has released a report designed to inform the public and DHS partners about public safety and national security threats and describes a threat environment that is anticipated to “remain high” in 2025.
DHS said Wednesday the 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment, dubbed HTA, seeks to help federal, state, and local agency partners prevent, prepare and respond to an evolving threat environment.
Key findings include the domestic and foreign threats facing the U.S. critical infrastructure and the use of coercive economic tools and economic espionage and illicit purchase of technologies and intellectual property to undermine U.S. competitiveness.
The assessment also covers public safety and security, border and immigration security, influence operations and transnational repression and illegal drugs.
DHS said it has initiated several measures to combat such threats, including expanding information-sharing agreements with international partners to improve the ability to detect and investigate trafficking and other crimes and addressing illicit fentanyl both in the U.S. and abroad.
According to the department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has performed over 1,000 physical security assessments and 700 cyber evaluations since the start of 2023.
Register now for the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Homeland Security Summit on Nov. 13 to learn more about technology initiatives to protect the country amid the evolving geopolitical landscape.
The Labor Department on Monday took key steps to increasing the minimum wages for various federal contractors next January, effectively increasing the topline minimum wage for contract work to $17.75 per hour.
The news came from a pair of notices published in the Federal Register Monday. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order expanding his $15 minimum wage for the federal workforce to the government’s contractor workforce, as well as creating a process for the Labor secretary to update that minimum wage annually, based on the annual change in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.
But in practice, the process—and the actual minimum wage—is more convoluted than that. Biden’s executive order only applies to federal contracts that have been signed, renewed or otherwise extended after Jan. 30, 2022. For federal contracts that began prior to that date, a similar executive order signed by former President Obama controls contractors’ wages.
Beginning next January, federal contractors whose agreement with the government began, was renewed or extended after January 2022 must be paid a minimum wage of $17.75 per hour. That minimum wage applies regardless of whether those employees receive tips as part of their work. That amounts to a 3.2% increase to federal contractors’ wage floor. According to the Obama-era executive order, the tipped wage floor is set at 70% of the nontipped minimum wage, rounded to the nearest nickel.
For employees of federal contractors whose most recent deal with federal agencies was prior to Jan. 30, 2022, the minimum wage for employees engaged in non-tipped work will increase from the current $12.90 per hour to $13.30 per hour, a 3.1% increase. Tipped workers must be guaranteed a “cash wage” of $9.30 per hour, an increase of 25 cents from the current $9.05.
Though the current bifurcated minimum wage system is convoluted, Labor Department officials wrote that they anticipate that updating the minimum wage for contracts covered under the Obama-era executive order will not be necessary for much longer.
“The department anticipates that, in the relatively near future, essentially all covered contracts with the federal government will qualify as ‘new’ contracts under Executive Order 14026 and be subject to its higher minimum wage rate,” the department wrote. “Until such time, however, Executive Order 13658 and its regulations . . . must remain in place.”
The federal agency that rules on adverse actions against federal employees has tackled virtually the entire mountain of cases created when congressional inaction forced it to stop fully operating for five years.
The Merit Systems Protection Board began fiscal 2025 this week with only 226 of those cases still awaiting a decision, meaning it has resolved 96% of nearly 3,800 cases that had languished for years. Between 2017 and 2022, MSPB’s central board had just one or no Senate-confirmed members, meaning it had no quorum and could not statutorily rule on matters appealed up to its level. That, in turn, led to the record backlog awaiting the board members who were seated after the Senate finally took action two years ago.
Upon restoring the quorum, board members Tristan Leavitt and Raymond Limon took some steps to help move the process along more quickly. Members could vote electronically and most case files were digitized, rather than moving vote sheets and documents physically between offices. The agency created a “triage system” to address the most pressing cases first and used “short orders” to quickly move cases without offering much in the way of explanations. The board members also sought to resolve more cases through settlement agreements.
Leavitt has since left the board, which now has all three of its presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed seats filled by Limon, Henry Kerner and Cathy Harris, its chair.
“Since the MSPB’s quorum was restored, it has been our mission to provide decisions to the thousands of federal employees and agencies who had been waiting,” Harris said. “Through the hard work and dedication of the Board’s employees and my fellow members, we have been able to nearly eliminate the inherited inventory in 2.5 years.”
The board has resolved new cases that have arisen since 2022, as well. It has ruled on a total of 4,400 cases since the quorum was restored.
The reconstituted board has brought stability to the agency by removing the constitutional controversy surrounding the appointment of its judges. It has also brought significant relief to federal employee and whistleblower advocates, who for years said Congress’ inaction was upending and undermining the civil service.
MSPB last month issued new regulations to enable the agency to carry out more of its functions even when a quorum is not present.
As artificial intelligence becomes more ingrained in all aspects of technology, agencies and vendors alike must consider new factors when it comes to buying these capabilities.
In a new memo released today, the Office of Management and Budget outlined these considerations in three buckets:
Proactively manage AI risk and performance
Promote a competitive AI marketplace
Create structures to govern and manage business processes related to acquiring AI in acquisition
“This new memo provides agencies with the tools and information they need as they acquire AI capturing his promise while managing its risks,” said Jason Miller, OMB’s deputy director for management, in a call with reporters. “The AI landscape is rapidly shifting and today’s guidance is an initial means for responsible AI acquisition by federal agencies.”
Jason Miller is the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget.
Miller said the memo both fulfills one of the requirements in President Joe Biden’s executive order on responsible AI from last October and tries to get ahead of the learning curve as more and more agencies go deeper into use AI.
In fact, OMB is expected to release an updated governmentwide inventory of AI uses cases on or around Dec. 16. The 2023 inventory showed there were more than 700 AI use cases, but the expectation is that number could easily double or triple given the excitement around generative AI and expanded use of predictive AI. A Government Accountability Office report from last December found 1,200 existing use cases, but most of the reported AI use cases are “in the planning phase, and not yet in production.
This is why OMB’s 36-page memo is trying to address some current and emerging questions around buying AI.
“Acquisition of AI presents some novel challenges, even though in some respects, much of the acquisition is similar to purchases of software without AI,” Miller said. “The due diligence that informs our buying process is a critical moment to ensure we’re setting ourselves up for success, that federal agencies are setting themselves up for success consistent with our expectations of agencies that when they are using AI to improve mission delivery for American citizens, they’re doing so in a way that is consistent.”
To ensure that agencies are applying the right rigor to the AI tools that are aimed at improving agency missions, OMB defined what type of AI falls under this memo and what type does not.
“Data systems, software, applications, tools or utilities established primarily for the purpose of researching, developing or implementing artificial intelligence technology, as well as data systems, software, applications, tools or utilities where an AI capability is integrated into another system or agency business process, operational activity or technology system,” OMB wrote. “The term excludes, however, any common commercial product within which artificial intelligence is embedded, such as a word processor or map navigation system.”
Avoiding AI vendor lock-in
OMB also detailed what types of AI the memo doesn’t apply to, such as “evaluations of particular AI applications because the AI provider is the target or potential target of a regulatory enforcement, law enforcement or national security action;” or “agencies’ acquisition of AI to carry out basic, applied or experimental research except where the purpose of such research is to develop particular AI applications within the agency.”
Once agencies have decided these rules apply to the AI tools or capabilities they are buying, OMB says another key factor to consider when trying to ensure a competitive market.
OMB’s Miller said the memo focused on concepts like interoperability, transparency, data portability and intellectual property rights.
“We want to ensure choice and diversification in the federal marketplace, to demonstrate our agility for our vendors can continue to innovate to improve AI use,” he said. “We want to ensure we’re always, always getting the best price for U.S. taxpayers on the products and services that we are acquiring.”
For example, agencies should “develop an approach to IP that considers what rights and deliverables are necessary for the agency to successfully accomplish its mission, protects federal information used by vendors in the development and operation of AI systems and services for the federal government, considers the exploration of open-source development practices of AI code, avoids vendor lock-in and avoids unnecessary costs.”
CXO coordination is essential
This could include negotiating the appropriate scope of licensing rights and other rights as well as creating a process and timeline for delivery of components needed to operate and monitor the AI system, including as appropriate: data; inputs to the development, testing and operation process.
The third bucket OMB is asking agencies to focus on is managing their business and acquisition processes.
Miller said this means creating a “tight loop” between leaders inside the agency and across the government.
The memo both calls for increased cross-agency coordination of the different councils like chief information officer, chief acquisition officer, chief data officer and chief AI officer as well as efforts inside agencies to bring together these C-suite leaders.
“We are sharing and we are reviewing the use case inventory together. We’re bringing cohorts of people together. We’re all learning fast here. And by bringing folks together and finding that multiple teams are trying to solve the exact same thing so by bringing them together, we are learning from a pilot that is already further down the path than somebody else’s, we are really trying to focus on moving quickly,” said a senior administration official. “We are making sure that we are sharing those key learnings and people are sharing non-sensitive procurement and acquisition information … so that we can all learn from each other. I think this is one of the most powerful ways that we’re going to go fast and not duplicate efforts by buying the same thing 400 times.”
OMB has been working on this memo since April when it issued a request for information and held an industry roundtable as part of it effort to gather feedback on how best to address challenges of acquiring AI.
A second senior administration official said OMB received more than 60 comments, which equaled more than 430 pages, from the RFI.
“We have coordinated this work consistently with all of those council groups. Then we have been working on the specific guidance individually with each agency. This is no surprise to them,” said the first administration official. “They have been partners with us because we have wanted to hear from the people on the ground who are doing the work to make sure that we are writing guidance that both achieves the administration’s goals and also is actionable, so that the agencies have clear comprehension and understanding so they can meet the deadlines and that we can continue to manage this effectively.”
Quinn Anex-Ries, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said in a statement that OMB’s new memo provides agencies with a clear roadmap to ensure the AI they buy protects the rights and safety of the public.
“As federal spending on AI increases, this guidance is not only an important framework for protecting the public from potential harms but for encouraging responsible AI practices throughout the AI marketplace more broadly,” Anex-Ries said.
The U.S. Navy has accepted the delivery of the USS Beloit, or LCS 29, from Lockheed Martin at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin on Sept. 30.
The Naval Sea Systems Command said Tuesday the USS Beloit, named after the city of Beloit, Wisconsin, completed its acceptance trials in August, which involved testing its combat and electrical systems, main propulsion and auxiliaries.
The LCS 29 will undergo post-delivery certifications and qualifications to ensure its readiness in actual fleet operations. Commissioning will be conducted later this year and then homeported in Mayport, Florida.
The Beloit, the 15th Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship, is equipped with the Freedom-class combining gear correction, which addresses a class-wide issue and enables unrestricted operations.
Capt. Matthew Lehmann, program manager of the Littoral Combat Ship program office, commended the prompt delivery, saying, “Beloit is another shining example of what it means to finish strong. Our industry partners stood up to the challenge to deliver this ship on an aggressive schedule.”
The future USS Cleveland, or LCS 31, is nearing completion and is expected to be delivered in 2025.
The white paper series is meant for professionals in technology, cybersecurity and privacy tasked with securing 5G even as its usage and deployment evolve, the NIST Computer Security Resource Center said Monday.
The third paper in the series is titled “Using Hardware-Enabled Security to Ensure 5G System Platform Integrity” and tackles the fostering of trust in a 5G server infrastructure through the use of hardware-enabled security capabilities. According to the initial public draft, the paper aims to address the problem arising from threat actors increasingly targeting a server’s firmware and hardware amid greater security focus on the system’s software layers.
Interested parties have until Oct. 30 to comment on the document.
NASA said Tuesday the firm fixed-price, milestone-based contracts, under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 Broad Agency Announcement Appendix Q, are intended to provide NASA insights into capabilities and technologies commercial communications and navigation providers can offer.
Intuitive Machines has been awarded $647,600 to conduct a study on lunar user terminals and network orchestration. This potential moon surface terminal will be used for exploration and to ensure compatibility with LunaNet service providers.
Aalyria received $393,004 to study the potential of a network orchestration and management system, which is intended to integrate commercial and government service providers into the Near Space Network.
Greg Heckler, new capability lead for the Space Communications and Navigation program, pointed out that the awards are part of NASA’s efforts to build commercial partnerships for high-demand space missions. “Seamless interoperability across networks, from here on Earth to cislunar space, is an essential element of SCaN’s emerging ‘one network’ approach. These awards will move us one step closer to realizing that future.”
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency, the FBI and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center have collaborated with counterparts in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea to establish guidelines on creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment for operational technology.
The 14-page document titled “Principles of Operational Technology Cybersecurity” outlines six principles to help organizations pinpoint business decisions with potential adverse impact on OT cybersecurity, according to CISA, which announced the guidebook’s release on Monday.
One of the principles cited in the guidance covers the supply chain and suggests that it has to be subject to an assurance program encompassing large and small suppliers of equipment and software, vendors and managed service providers.
Another guidebook principle focuses on expanding the internal segmentation and segregation of OT networks from the internet and from IT networks to include connections with outside organizations.
The Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre authored the guidance, with the co-seals of the U.S. agencies and other partners from the six allied countries.
The Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday announced that it would establish a temporary leave-sharing program to help federal employees who need time off from work to recover after Hurricane Helene caused widespread destruction across more than half a dozen states.
The storm, which made landfall as a category 4 hurricane in Florida last week, has reportedly caused at least 180 deaths in the U.S. and created widespread flooding and other storm damage as far north as Virginia.
In a memo to agency heads Wednesday, Acting OPM Director Rob Shriver announced that his agency and the Office of Management and Budget will establish an emergency leave transfer program for federal employees across seven states. Such programs enable agencies to set up banks so that federal workers may donate unused paid leave to their colleagues impacted by natural disasters can take time off without needing to use their own paid—or unpaid—leave.
“Agencies with employees adversely affected by Tropical Cyclone, Tropical Storm, and Hurricane Helene 2024 are in the best position to determine whether, and how much, donated annual leave is needed by their employees and which of their employees have been adversely affected by the disaster within the meaning of OPM regulations,” Shriver said. “[Therefore], OPM is authorizing agency and department heads to [set up and administer leave transfer programs].”
Employees wishing to donate leave should therefore contact their own agency, not OPM, to volunteer to donate a portion of their unused leave, OPM stressed.
The leave transfer program will be available to help affected employees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. For a complete list of which counties are included, check OPM’s complete memo announcing the program.
BAE Systems has received a $6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to produce autonomous software capabilities for military communications.
Under Phase 2 of the Mission-Integrated Network Control, or MINC, program, BAE Systems’ Fast Labs research and development unit aims to improve algorithms and software that predict and align network services, the aerospace and security company announced Wednesday.
Brian Decleene, chief scientist at FAST Labs, said, “The technology we are maturing will act as the brains of this highly complex and mission-critical networked communications system.”
MINC is designed to create a system that fosters a secure communication apparatus to aid multi-domain operations.
“This award allows us to continue our work to deliver the right information to the right user at the right time across multiple domains,” Decleene added.
BAE Systems will perform the work in Burlington, Massachusetts, and Arlington, Virginia.
