All posts by : admin-stone

Gen. Steven Nordhaus took command of the National Guard Bureau during a ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia, replacing Gen. Daniel Hokanson, who retired in August.

Before assuming his new responsibility, Nordhaus received his fourth star, earning the general a seat at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Air Force said Wednesday.

Navy Adm. Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a 2022 Wash100 winner, presided over the turnover ceremony.

In his Tuesday acceptance speech, the new NGB chief vowed to focus on people, readiness, partnerships and modernization to ensure that the service remains postured for global competition and responsive in times of domestic crisis.

“Everything I do in this role will be in the service of our people so we can ensure mission success,” Nordhaus stressed.

Nordhaus most recently served as commander of the Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and the 1st Air Force. He was responsible for planning and conducting air defense and air sovereignty operations in the continental United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

He also served as NGB’s director of operations and commander of the Air National Guard Readiness Center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Earlier, the Air Force general was an executive assistant to Army Gen. Frank Grass, the 27th NGB chief.

Nordhaus is a command pilot with over 3,000 flight hours in various aircraft. He has flown combat missions in various operations, including Southern Watch, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Watch, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

The new NGB head will lead around 46,000 guardsmen spread across the U.S. and abroad to support homeland and international defense deployments.

The Department of the Air Force through the Space Force Rapid Capabilities Office has issued a request for information for advisory and assistance services.

According to the notice issued on Sam.gov Tuesday, the SpRCO is seeking feedback from industry experts on a potential time and material contract. This contract will cover services including analyses, acquisition studies, assessments, cost analyses, trade studies, documentation preparation and review, comparative logistics and cost trade-offs that address particular issues or critical areas.

The RFI also focuses on services related to acquisition, engineering, financial management support, logistics and test-related activities. The potential contracted company is required to have a valid security facility clearance and authorized Safeguarding level. It’s also necessary for their employees to be eligible for classified access.

Responses to the RFI are due Nov. 18.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued the third edition of its guidance aimed at promoting transparency in the supply chain of software components. The new document, titled “Transparency: Establishing a Common Software Bill of Materials,” amplifies the baseline attributes needed for establishing transparency cited in the second guidance edition issued in 2021, CISA said Tuesday.

The updated edition will serve as a detailed guide for creating software bills of materials, or SBOMs, the agency added. It defines an SBOM as “a formal, machine-readable inventory of software components and dependencies, information about those components and their relationships.”

The new guidebook clarifies the expectations for each SBOM baseline attribute. It also adds two baseline attributes—license and copyright holder—and includes risk management in the SBOM consumption process.

CISA developed the 39-page guidance through its community-driven working group and software community input. 

In April 2023, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology directorate selected seven start-ups to build SBOM-based products to help CISA create a multi-format SBOM translator and a software component identifier translator as foundational open-source software libraries.

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Homeland Security Summit on Nov. 13, to learn more about the major threats against the United States and the efforts underway to address them. Register now!

The Department of Labor has published guidance to ensure that artificial intelligence development and deployment in the workplace preserve job quality and support worker well-being. The AI Best Practices serves as a comprehensive roadmap designed for technology developers and employers, the department said Wednesday. 

The document is in line with the department’s AI and Worker Well-being: Principles for Developers and Employers, released in May. Both guidelines are developed in compliance with President Joe Biden’s Oct. 30 Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI. 

AI Best Practices for the Workplace

The newly published document identifies strategies that enable businesses to benefit from AI without violating worker rights. Some of the strategies outlined are providing AI training, being transparent on the technology’s employment in the workplace, maintaining human oversight on important employment decisions and securing worker data. 

“These Best Practices provide a roadmap for responsible AI in the workplace, helping businesses harness these technologies while proactively supporting and valuing their workers,” commented Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. “As we embrace the opportunities that AI can offer, we must ensure workers are lifted up, not left behind.”

The document follows the AI and Inclusive Hiring Framework developed by the Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology to prevent employment discrimination in the hiring process.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and Wolfspeed, a silicone carbide wafers and devices manufacturer, have signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms to invest up to $750 million to boost silicone carbide wafer production.

The DOC said Tuesday the proposed investment, under the CHIPS and Science Act, is intended for the construction of the John Palmour Manufacturing Center, a new 200mm silicone carbide wafer manufacturing facility in Siler City, North Carolina. The new facility is expected to boost the supply of semiconductors and create more than 5,000 manufacturing and construction jobs.

Measuring around two million square feet, the new facility will be the largest of its kind in the United States. It will also be the first high-volume 200mm silicon carbide wafer manufacturing facility in the world.

The proposed CHIPS funding will also be used for Wolfspeed’s $6 billion expansion plan, starting with the company’s Marcy, New York facility. This has the potential to increase the facility’s production by 30 percent.

With the new facility and expansion of the one in New York, Wolfspeed expects a five-fold increase in silicon carbide device production and a ten-fold increase in 200mm materials production.

The current administration, through its Investing in America initiative, has been working on revitalizing the country’s semiconductor supply chain while creating more well-paying job opportunities and investing in future energy and artificial intelligence innovations.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stressed the significance of the investment in advancing technologies such as AI, electric vehicles and clean energy.

“Thanks to proposed investments in companies like Wolfspeed, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking a meaningful step towards reigniting U.S. manufacturing of the chips that underpin these important technologies,” Raimondo expressed.

The National Security Agency, alongside partner agencies like the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has released a joint cybersecurity advisory concerning efforts by Iranian cyber actors to compromise the systems belonging to various critical infrastructure—or CI—sectors.

Attack Objectives

The NSA said Wednesday that since 2023, Iranian cyber actors have been using brute force and other techniques to break into systems used by energy, government, healthcare and other CI organizations. MITRE ATT&CK defines brute force as the attempt by an attacker to systematically guess the target system’s password via “a repetitive or iterative mechanism.”

Once the Iranian attackers gain access, they work to enable persistent access by modifying multifactor authentication registrations. They also steal more credentials to sell on criminal forums.

Purpose of the Advisory

The joint cybersecurity advisory seeks to provide readers with recommendations on how to detect brute force activity on their systems. The document also offers recommendations on how to mitigate such activities.

“We explain the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by the Iranian actors, as well as indicators of compromise,” NSA Cybersecurity Director Dave Luber explained.

“Our agencies are sharing detailed insight into this malicious cyber activity and what organizations can do to shore up their defenses,” Luber added.

Over a third of the government’s use cases for artificial intelligence are under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to Micky Tripathi, acting chief AI officer for the agency. In order to govern and organize this enormous AI push, HHS will publish a strategic plan to guide its AI activities in January, FedScoop reports.

AI is broadly applicable throughout HHS, with functionality across the “entire breadth of what the department covers,” said Tripathi at an NVIDIA event last week. But the strategic plan will give serious consideration to “guardrails” as well.

At the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Healthcare Summit, healthcare data and IT leaders like Veterans Affairs’ Lisa Rosenmerkel, HHS Center for IT’s Xavier Soosai and Deputy CIO Jennifer Wendel will offer exclusive insights about how HHS and the government healthcare system are integrating AI and many more innovative technologies. Don’t miss out on this fascinating event, set for Dec. 11; it’ll close out the year for POC in style.

Goals of the HHS AI Strategic Plan

Per Tripathy, the forthcoming AI strategic plan “looks across the department as we think about the healthcare sector generally, so it’s both externally focused as well as internal saying: Where do we see from just a general public policy perspective the needs of the industry and all of those domains across that entire value chain … what role does the federal government play in each of those areas? What potential roles does AI play in each of those areas?”

Tripathy said the guide both attempts to break down obstacles to innovation as well as erect boundaries and limitations that ultimately serve to encourage technological advancements rather than stymie them.

Those who will be impacted by the strategy should look for it to address areas such as medical research and discovery, healthcare delivery, medical product safety management, preclinical practice and much more.

NASA has relaunched a framework that seeks to modernize acquisition processes and advance innovation across the space agency.

The agency said Wednesday the NASA Acquisition Innovation Launchpad framework, or NAIL, was introduced in February 2023 as a pilot program to solicit ideas from acquisition stakeholders to drive innovation and manage risk-taking.

The NAIL program’s accomplishments over the past year reportedly include enhancing the procurement process, advancing automation and building an industry feedback forum.

NASA’s Office of Procurement expects the relaunched NAIL framework to address several priorities in fiscal year 2025, including providing additional engagement opportunities for the agency’s innovators, fostering procurement success stories and investing in technology and talent.

The agency also announced that NAIL Program Director Brittney Chappell will oversee new framework improvements and engagement moving forward.

“I am thrilled to step into this role and lead the program, using everything our team has learned from the last year,” said Chappell. “Together with internal and external stakeholders, we will turn bold ideas into impactful solutions that drive real change.”