Tag Archives: Defense Department

Katie Arrington, chief information security officer for acquisition at the Department of Defense and a 2020 Wash100 award winner, told Government Matters in an interview posted Sunday about the creation of standards that third-party assessment organizations will use to evaluate and certify contractors under DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.

Six technology trade associations have asked the Department of Defense to consider their recommendations and respond to their queries with regard to the implementation of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. The trade groups presented their suggestions in a Thursday letter addressed to Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and a 2020 Wash100 award winner, and Katie Arrington, chief information security officer and fellow Wash100 recipient.

The Department of Defense and a nonprofit corporation have signed a memorandum of understanding to move the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program forward, Nextgov reported Thursday. Katie Arrington, chief information security officer in DoD's acquisition office and a 2020 Wash100 awardee, confirmed the MOU between the Pentagon and the CMMC accreditation body during a webinar held Thursday.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has renewed its anti-virus software license agreement with McAfee to allow Department of Defense employees working at home to protect their personal computers from viruses, spyware and other cyber threats.

The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a $2T emergency funding package to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Politico reported. The package would authorize $10.5B in emergency funds for the Department of Defense and another $19.6B for the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a Military Times report. 

Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University’s School of Business, has presented his key takeaways from a presentation by Katie Arrington, chief information security officer at the Department of Defense and a 2020 Wash100 award winner, about DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. McGinn noted that CMMC not only applies to DoD, but also to companies and individuals.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has asked the court to deny the Department of Defense’s request to reassess its decision to award the potential 10-year, $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), GeekWire reported Tuesday. Amazon requests the court to direct DoD to review the proposals with respect to all of the concerns it has raised in its protest, according to the company’s motion opposing the Pentagon review unsealed Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense said DoD does not intend to split the potential 10-year, $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing contract between Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and  Amazon Web Services, Breaking Defense reported Monday.

Rob Stein, senior vice president for North America public sector at Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), has said the adoption of cloud could help government agencies deliver improved services to citizens and carry out their missions. “Cloud can co-exist with legacy infrastructure to unlock data that resides in back-office systems, deliver it across the enterprise and provide the agility needed to make it highly applicable to just about any mission need,” Stein wrote.

If agencies and companies implement measures that do not align with new federal guidance defining essential workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they will end up hurting the very professionals and businesses that help protect national security, writes EverWatch CEO John Hillen.