• CMS EVENT ALERT 📣: You’re invited to a GovBrew sponsored in-person event featuring CMS and industry leaders to discuss acquisition & vehicle trends, initiatives, emerging technology, and processes.
• POLARIS HubZone and SDVOSB RFP updates.
• VA conducting cyber breach investigation: The VA is investigating a breach after a federal contractor published source code on GitHub.
• Who You Gonna Call? Your Contracting Officer! A proposal how-to. Find some answers to the pre-solicitation and solicitation questions you’re too afraid to ask.
• Oracle is paying $23M to settle SEC-levied bribery charges: Oracle to pay $23M to settle charges saying it violated the FCPA when subsidiaries bribed foreign officials.

DEFENSE & AEROSPACE

ICYMI Snippets

• DHRA is hosting a virtual industry event on Oct 13 and 27.
• Navy initiative to lay undersea mines now more than three years behind schedule.
• Senate won’t vote on FY23 NDAA until after midterms.
• STARCOM concludes first live simulation exercise Black Skies 22.
• SBIR was saved by congress at the last minute, continues on through 2025.

Defense Contract Awards

• SAIC Snags $170M NASA Contract for Systems, Software Assurance Services.
• Parsons to Continue Supporting MDA under $104M Contract.
• ANALYGENCE, Inc. wins $80M+ TO to provide advisory and assistance to Cyber Command.
• Tiger Tech awarded $50M supporting Wearable Warfighter Health Monitoring System.

Follow the Defense Leaders

• Aerospace Corp. selects new senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary.
• HII chooses new executive VP and CTO.

Defense Job Openings

• AFCS needs a Chief, Special Activities Branch to work for the USSF at the Pentagon.
• The Navy is looking for a Senior Advisor for Acoustic Intelligence.

INTEL COMMUNITY

NSA employee charged with espionage after leaking classified cyber intel.

A former NSA InfoSec Designer has been arrested after spying on the U.S. government on behalf of a foreign government. The perpetrator allegedly committed three separate violations of the Espionage Act by using an encrypted email account to leak classified intelligence to an individual claiming to work for a foreign state. Read more

IARPA kicks off HIATUS program to engineer novel AI.

In a fun dose of irony, IARPA has announced the launch of its HIATUS program to create new artificial intelligence technologies capable of attributing authorship and protecting authors’ privacy. The program is the IC’s latest effort to engineer novel human language technologies that can combat foreign influence activities, identify counterintelligence risks, and protect potentially vulnerable authors. Read more

CISA launches Protective DNS to defend federal enterprises from cyber attacks.

CISA has launched its Protective Domain Name System to secure federal networks and the cybersecurity posture of federal agencies. The service is built on state-of-the-art, geographically distributed infrastructure to minimize the effects of malicious cyber activities. Read more

ICYMI Snippets

• DOS must make itself data-driven one campaign at a time, says Department Chief Data Officer.
• Check out the new flying saucer on the Aviation Intelligence logo! It’s out of this world!
• Secret Service celebrates swearing-in of 27th Director Kimberly Cheatle.
• Snowden is now a Russian citizen.

IC Contract Awards

• DHS ICE announces awardees of 5-year, $340M SWIFT IDIQ.
• INADEV awarded $107M prime contract supporting USCIS Fraud Detection Unit.
• ISS awarded $3.5M NOAA contract supporting NOPP program office.
• AttainX JV (Amaze Technologies) with 22nd Century Technologies and Deloitte awarded DHS ICE Robotic Processes contract.

Follow IC Leaders

IC Job Openings

US Marshals and Bitcoin

The US Marshals have seized and auctioned quite a bit of Bitcoin throughout the years. Although they made some nice gains from the auctions, they could be sitting on a small fortune had they HODL’d (hold on for dear life) or held their stash. Let’s look at the totals…

• Total number of BTC seized and sold: 185,230 👮🏼‍♂️
• Total USD gained from the sales: $151,493,104 💸
• Current USD value of all sold BTC: $3,526,434,134 👀
• Potential USD gains missed: $3,374,941,030 🤯

CIVILIAN

Treasury watchdog wants IRS to kick insider threat monitoring into high gear.

A treasury watchdog is urging the IRS to widen its insider threat monitoring capabilities, lest more information goes missing from key systems. The watchdog stated that the IRS has not done enough to ensure necessary systems are in place to prevent the loss of sensitive information. Read more

Treasury needs help with its homework, seeking feedback for report to Congress.

The Department’s Federal Insurance Office—together with the CISA—is soliciting feedback in preparation for a report to Congress. The Office wants to know whether a national cyber insurance program should require policyholders to implement basic cybersecurity measures in order to avoid creating a moral hazard. Read more

Nominee for “most important job that noone has ever heard of” makes his case to be OIRA administrator.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, housed within the OMB, is a small office that oversees the regulatory process across the government, approves government information collections, establishes government statistical practices and coordinates federal privacy policy. Richard Revesz made his case this week for the top job. Read more

ICYMI Snippets

• Tidbit of the day: State Department releases special-edition biweekly opp report.
• DOI to host Bipartisan Infrastructure Law virtual industry day.
• WH thinks food assistance programs are too tough to use and are looking to give it an easy button.
• GAO reports that Federal agencies still face four Cloud challenges.

Civilian Contracts Awards

• RCG, Inc. one of fifteen firms selected for CATTS IDIQ with $1.5B ceiling.
• GDIT wins $110M VA contract to provide Tier 1 IT support
• CMS awards Fearless $67M contract to transform Medicaid and CHIP program system.
• Electrosoft wins $11.7M GSA Contract to improve ICAM governance and solutions.
• VetsEZ awarded HMDM DevSecOps support contract.

Follow Civilian Leaders

Civilian Job Openings

• The FDA needs a Deputy for Technology and Bioresearch Quality and Support Operations.

M&A CORNER

Cyber AB forms training and certification subsidiary.

The Cyber AB has announced the formation of a subsidiary organization that will independently oversee training and certification programs for credentialed DOD individuals supporting the CMMC initiative. Read more

DOJ wants Booz Allen’s EverWatch acquisition delayed until NSA awards Optimal Decision contract.

The DOJ is urging that Booz Allen Hamilton’s acquisition of EverWatch be on hold until NSA’s $17M Optimal Decision contract is awarded. An attorney with DOJ’s Antitrust Division argued, “Their merger agreement removes the incentive to compete, which is likely to lead to anticompetitive effects such as increased price or reduced quality…” Read more

Booz Allen Hamilton announces launch of Booz Allen Ventures.

The Ventures was launched with an initial fund of $100M. This corporate venture capital initiative will actively invest in startups in artificial intelligence/machine learning, cyber defense, defense tech, and deep tech, including quantum computing, 5G, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), and edge computing.   Read more