Podcasts about Defense Information Systems Agency

The Defense Information Systems Agency is losing nearly 10% of its civilian workers as part of the Pentagon's broader effort to downsize its workforce. But DISA leaders say the downsizing is actually a chance to take a look at their priorities. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis has the details.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Defense Information Systems Agency networks are leveraging AI and sensors to boost real-time monitoring and synthetic traffic, as well as improve user experience and incident resolution. At AFCEA TechNet 2025 in Baltimore, DISA J6 Global Services Directorate Vice Director Brig. Gen. Michael Cornell discussed the impact of emerging technology on data tagging, diagnostics and interoperability of DOD systems. Ahead of his June retirement, Cornell also reflected on his proudest moments in of his decades-long career in uniform, particularly working alongside dedicated service members in operational environments.

After a year of development and testing, the Defense Information Systems Agency is ready to roll out an artificial intelligence concierge for its workforce. The platform will help DISA's employees to quickly find answers to everyday questions instead of pestering colleagues. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis has more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a year of development and testing, the Defense Information Systems Agency is ready to roll out an artificial intelligence concierge for its workforce. The platform will help DISA's employees to quickly find answers to everyday questions instead of pestering colleagues. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis has more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is harnessing artificial intelligence to secure multi-cloud environments. Effective monitoring capabilities for the cloud are critical to avoid bad actors from breaching vulnerabilities and to further secure the edge. DISA CTO and Emerging Technology Director Steve Wallace at Billington Cyber Summit in Washington, D.C., discussed how emerging technology is helping the Defense Department manage its multi-cloud environment, the value of AI amid legacy system modernization and the importance of embracing new technology to improve skill sets and tackle larger tech challenges.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is gearing up for the Olympus pilot phase in September. We get an update from Federal News Network reporter Anastasia Obis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Information Systems Agency is gearing up for the Olympus pilot phase in September. We get an update from Federal News Network reporter Anastasia Obis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Defense Information Systems Agency's transport office essentially provides the internet to the Defense Department. An like any other provider, people take it for granted until something goes wrong. For what the office has been up to, Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis checked in with director Chris Paczkowski. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Information Systems Agency's transport office essentially provides the internet to the Defense Department. An like any other provider, people take it for granted until something goes wrong. For what the office has been up to, Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis checked in with director Chris Paczkowski. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

(6/17/24) - In today's Federal Newscast: Army Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton has been nominated by the President to lead the Defense Information Systems Agency. The Republican-controlled House has cleared its version of the 2025 defense policy bill. And Senate Republicans have put a hold on more than 40 of the President's nominees, half of whom are nominees to the federal bench. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(6/17/24) - In today's Federal Newscast: Army Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton has been nominated by the President to lead the Defense Information Systems Agency. The Republican-controlled House has cleared its version of the 2025 defense policy bill. And Senate Republicans have put a hold on more than 40 of the President's nominees, half of whom are nominees to the federal bench. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Adam interviews Marcus Lea, the Deputy Associate Administrator for Management at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), about the importance of human capital and growing the workforce in the nuclear security field. They discuss recruitment and retention strategies, promoting the mission to potential candidates, inspiring youth to pursue STEM fields, partnerships with minority serving institutions, mentoring and guidance for students, and addressing challenges in federal hiring. Mr. Lea provides management, leadership, and day-to-day guidance in the NNSA administrative functions, including budget, NNSA Human Resources, Business Services, Audit and Internal Affairs, Learning and Career Management, and International Operations, providing guidance and assistance to the Administrator in all administrative areas. He is also responsible for developing and implementing Working Capital and related business policies, systems, procedures, and practices of the Department and the NNSA to ensure that they are responsive to the requirements for effective, efficient, and economical achievement of all programmatic goals and program objectives, and that they are fully supportive of the NNSA legislation and strategic plans.Prior to joining NNSA, Mr. Lea was Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center's Office of Human Capital. He led the entire scope of the Center's workforce strategy and planning, organization and leadership development, academic affairs, training and incentives, federal labor relations and employee services and operations. Prior to serving at NASA, Mr. Lea was Director for the Office of Human Capital Management at NNSA. He also served as DOE's Deputy for the Office of Human Resources and as Director of Human Resources Operations. Before joining DOE, Mr. Lea was a Civilian Personnel Officer for the United States Air Force District of Washington. Mr. Lea began his professional career as an Allowances and Differentials Analyst for the United States Department of State and progressively served in leadership roles spanning all of the Human Resources disciplines for the Office of Personnel Management; the United States Air Force Materiel Command; the Defense Information Systems Agency; and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.Socials:Follow on Twitter at @NucleCastFollow on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nuclecastpodcastSubscribe RSS Feed: https://rss.com/podcasts/nuclecast-podcast/Rate: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nuclecast/id1644921278Email comments and topic/guest suggestions to NucleCast@anwadeter.org

Federally protected FBI whistleblower Nate Cain, rejoins the program to discuss the out of control FBI and intelligence agencies. He shares what he has seen first hand in the bureau and what is actually occurring. He shares his personal story of abuse as a whistleblower, from being poisoned twice to being barred from making a living. A typical story of a true patriot wanting honor and integrity to be restored to our beloved country. You can support his campaign at https://NateCain4WV.com Mentioned in the show: Enter to win the EMF protecting H.E.A.L. Capsule at https://SarahWestall.com/giveaway Learn more how you can convert your IRA or buy precious metals by emailing info@MilesFranklin.com - tell them ‘Sarah sent me” and get the best service and prices in the country. Zelenko has you covered - from Z-DTox to Kids Z-stack. Buy now at https://zstacklife.com/?ref=Sarah - Use code "SARAH" to save 5% Consider subscribing: Follow on my Substack at SarahWestall.Substack.com Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sarah_westall See Important Proven Solutions to Keep Your from getting sick even if you had the mRNA Shot - Dr. Nieusma MUSIC CREDITS: “In Epic World” by Valentina Gribanova, licensed for broad internet media use, including video and audio         See video on Bastyon | Bitchute | Rumble | Odysee | Youtube | Freedom.Social     Nate Cains's Biography Nate Cain is a U.S. Army veteran and has traveled the world with his family due to military service. He continued to serve his country as a U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps civil servant and defense contractor in cybersecurity engineering for over two decades. Nate Cain has roots in the Appalachia, where his family were coal miners and farmers. He chose to settle his family in West Virginia, so they could enjoy the greatest level of freedom and a life surrounded by the beauty of God's country. He feels a connection with a community of folks who value God, family, and country and where the 2nd amendment is not infringed. Nate Cain believes that our greatest success as a country stems from its foundation in God. His personal relationship with Jesus Christ, whom he came to know as a teenager, has been the strongest influence of his life. He boldly speaks about the importance of faith in God and recognizes the problems we face in our country and in our families that cannot be solved by human intervention alone. It requires the grace of God. In Nate's career as a cybersecurity expert of 26 years, he has worked for the Army, Navy, Marines, Defense Information Systems Agency, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, receiving medals and service commendations in several positions. Nate has taken the oath three times, once as a soldier and twice as a Department of Defense civilian. He has held and still holds a Top Secret security clearance for 25 of those years, having been entrusted with the protection and security of the Nation and its secrets. Nate has grown in his relationship with the Lord throughout the years and, though a fallible human being and despite the difficulties of life, he has always returned to the principles he learned through his faith. His integrity and commitment to telling the truth in difficult circumstances has come at great personal cost to both him and his family, but he has no regrets, and the Lord has used those trials to strengthen his faith. In 2017 while working at the FBI, he discovered that leadership at the Bureau and in the DOJ were refusing to pursue open case files on Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, effectively obstructing justice relating to Uranium 1 and many other matters. Suppressing highly credible evidence in their possession of a national security issue of urgent concern, the FBI took sides in the 2016 election, determined to falsely paint Donald Trump as a Russian operative and running cover for...

Mr. Joseph Wassel is the Executive Director (CEO) of the First Responder Network Authority. He is responsible for overall management of all FirstNet Authority operations and the organization's strategic direction, to include its unique public-private arrangement to deploy and enhance the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network. Prior to joining the FirstNet Authority, Mr. Wassel served as the Executive for the Cyberspace Operations Directorate within the Defense Information Systems Agency. He is also the former Director of C4 Resilience & Mission Assurance in the Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer's office. He was also the founder and chair of DoD's Public Safety Communications Working Group, where he led the Services, Joint Staff, National Guard, NORTHCOM, and other DoD partner activities for the Department's public safety communications efforts, including Next-Generation Public Safety Wireless capabilities, Next-Generation 9-1-1 implementation, and Enterprise Mass Warning and Notification capabilities for DoD. Prior to assuming his former positions, Mr. Wassel served as the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Communications and Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A retired Air Force Officer, he has commanded troops during several tours in the United States and overseas and deployed as a reservist in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as the Chief of Command and Control Operations for the International Security Assistance Force at the Combined Joint Operations Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. Mr. Wassel Joined the Senior Executive Service (SES) Corps in 2019. His military and civilian decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, and the Secretary of Defense Meritorious and Exceptional Civilian Service Medals. He was decorated for his actions during the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say the Defense Information Systems Agency is in a heavy research mode.Whether it's around cybersecurity tools and capabilities or cloud services, DISA has no fewer than 14 ongoing or recently completed pilot initiatives.Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, DISA's director and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network (JTF-DODIN), said each of these efforts include the military services as part of the effort to field capabilities that are less complex and more effective.Take as an example, the three pilots to better protect internet boundaries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say the Defense Information Systems Agency is in a heavy research mode. Whether it's around cybersecurity tools and capabilities or cloud services, DISA has no fewer than 14 ongoing or recently completed pilot initiatives. Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, DISA's director and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network (JTF-DODIN), said each of these efforts include the military services as part of the effort to field capabilities that are less complex and more effective. Take as an example, the three pilots to better protect internet boundaries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of AI Proficiency: Turning Tomorrow into Today, we are joined by  Drew Malloy, Technical Director of the  Cyber Development Directorate for the Defense Information Systems Agency. Drew sat down with us to discuss Project Thunderdome within the department as an initiative to further cybersecurity and Zero Trust efforts, and their goals to improve security as well as performance. Listen in to learn more about how they are implementing AI as a resource to ensure efficiency in data collection and security measures.  CDAO: https://www.ai.mil/  Tradewind AI: https://www.tradewindai.com/  Alethia Labs: https://alethialabs.org/  ATARC: https://atarc.org/

FBI Whistleblower, Nate Cain, joins the program to discuss how extensive the FBI, NSA and other agencies have become weaponized against the American people. He shares his personal story and treatment after blowing the whistle on the FBI for their illegal activities involving Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Supreme court justices and every day citizens. He also claims the U.S. Government has illegal private immunity agreements beyond section 230 with Big Tech/Social media companies. He is running for congress vowing to expose the corruption. You can support his campaign at https://NateCain4WV.com Mentioned in the show: Protect your IRA and other assets, contact info@MilesFranklin.com - Tell them "Sarah Sent Me" and get the best service and prices in the country. Dissolve the Spike protein and blood clots: Protect yourself from shedding and the vaccine - Get Spike Support at https://TWC.Health/Sarah Consider subscribing: Follow on my Substack at SarahWestall.Substack.com Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sarah_westall See Important Proven Solutions to Keep Your from getting sick even if you had the mRNA Shot - Dr. Nieusma MUSIC CREDITS: "Do You Trust Me" by Michael Vignola, licensed for broad internet media use, including video and audio       See video on Bastyon | Bitchute | Rumble | Odysee | Freedom.Social | SarahWestall.tv     Nate Cains's Biography Nate Cain is a U.S. Army veteran and has traveled the world with his family due to military service. He continued to serve his country as a U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps civil servant and defense contractor in cybersecurity engineering for over two decades. Nate Cain has roots in the Appalachia, where his family were coal miners and farmers. He chose to settle his family in West Virginia, so they could enjoy the greatest level of freedom and a life surrounded by the beauty of God's country. He feels a connection with a community of folks who value God, family, and country and where the 2nd amendment is not infringed. Nate Cain believes that our greatest success as a country stems from its foundation in God. His personal relationship with Jesus Christ, whom he came to know as a teenager, has been the strongest influence of his life. He boldly speaks about the importance of faith in God and recognizes the problems we face in our country and in our families that cannot be solved by human intervention alone. It requires the grace of God. In Nate's career as a cybersecurity expert of 26 years, he has worked for the Army, Navy, Marines, Defense Information Systems Agency, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, receiving medals and service commendations in several positions. Nate has taken the oath three times, once as a soldier and twice as a Department of Defense civilian. He has held and still holds a Top Secret security clearance for 25 of those years, having been entrusted with the protection and security of the Nation and its secrets. Nate has grown in his relationship with the Lord throughout the years and, though a fallible human being and despite the difficulties of life, he has always returned to the principles he learned through his faith. His integrity and commitment to telling the truth in difficult circumstances has come at great personal cost to both him and his family, but he has no regrets, and the Lord has used those trials to strengthen his faith. In 2017 while working at the FBI, he discovered that leadership at the Bureau and in the DOJ were refusing to pursue open case files on Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, effectively obstructing justice relating to Uranium 1 and many other matters. Suppressing highly credible evidence in their possession of a national security issue of urgent concern, the FBI took sides in the 2016 election, determined to falsely paint Donald Trump as a Russian operative and running cover for Hil...

One of the biggest obstacles for small businesses to work for the Defense Department is the need for a facility clearance.It comes down to the old chicken or the egg discussion. The small business needs a facility clearance to win contracts. But that same company can't get a facility clearance unless they have a sponsor on a contract.Carlen Capenos, the director of small business programs for the Defense Information Systems Agency, said DISA has a plan to crack this conundrum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the biggest obstacles for small businesses to work for the Defense Department is the need for a facility clearance. It comes down to the old chicken or the egg discussion. The small business needs a facility clearance to win contracts. But that same company can't get a facility clearance unless they have a sponsor on a contract. Carlen Capenos, the director of small business programs for the Defense Information Systems Agency, said DISA has a plan to crack this conundrum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the main goals of the Biden Administration's new National Cybersecurity Strategy is to favor long-term investments by protecting against urgent threats now and building a resilient cybersecurity posture for the future. Cody Cornell, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Swimlane who has worked in IT and security roles at the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, explains how the U.S. can defend against supply chain attacks and emphasize community-driven threat detection. With the FedRAMP Authorization Act now codified into law, the FedRAMP program is now the federal government's security assessment and authorization approach for working with cloud providers. Matt Goodrich, head of transformation at Schellman and former FedRAMP director at the General Services Administration, discusses the evolution of the FedRAMP program. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Enterprise Knowledge CEO Zach Wahl speaks with Bill Balko, former Chief Knowledge Officer at Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). DISA, a Department of Defense combat support agency, provides information technology and communications support to any individual or system contributing to the defense of the United States. Bill, who has been at DISA since 2007, discusses the importance of fostering knowledge management within the government and between government organizations, and speaks about embedding knowledge capture into the work people do every day in order to achieve the "Holy Grail of knowledge management, data management, organizational management, and workforce development: all of that working in concert."

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow Armistice Day, 1918 #WashingtonDC: What is the Defense Information Systems Agency, DSA? Francis Rose, FedGovToday.com https://audioboom.com/posts/8240793-2-2-23-tsp-reinvestments-on-hold-disa-director-ltgen-skinner-s-message-to-industry

The Army is currently executing its unified network plan with the goal of becoming a multi-domain capable force by 2028. The Army will support that network with a multi-cloud, multi-vendor hybrid approach. Lt. Gen. Bill Bender (USAF, ret.), senior vice president for customer excellence & government relations at Leidos and former chief information officer at the Air Force, explains how this approach will help Army get data to the edge and ensure their cloud environment is secure. The Defense Information Systems Agency has a new Data Strategy Implementation Plan which calls for DISA to leverage data as a center of gravity. The I-Plan places a key focus on data management. Rob Carey, president at Cloudera Government Solutions and former principal deputy chief information officer at the Department of Defense, discusses the organizational alignment needed to execute this type of strategy. The CIA has a new online hiring portal with the goal of modernizing and streamlining the agency's hiring process. The web-based platform is called “MyLINK” and launched at the beginning of the new year. Theresa Randall, talent acquisition office deputy chief at CIA, discusses how MyLINK will help the agency attract new talent. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

A Sugar Hill family is staying with relatives after a fire destroyed their home on Friday, according to Gwinnett fire officials. Captain Ryan McGiboney said firefighters were called to the home on the 5700 block of Avonley Creek Drive at 12:54 p.m. and arrived a few minutes later to find heavy flames coming from the house. A 9-1-1 caller said the homeowner worked at night, but no one had seen him escape from the house. There were three cars parked in the home's driveway when firefighters arrived. As it turned out, the homeowner and his wife were outside the home and crews found them standing on a sidewalk. the homeowner confirmed to fire officials that the home had been vacant when the fire broke out. Firefighters used a ladder truck to knock out most of the flame and then used handlines to extinguish remaining hot spots. The cause of the fire has not been determined. McGiboney said said the family that lived at the home will stay with family members while repairs are made to their house. Hebron Christian senior Libby Jackson placed 16th out of 40 athletes in the pole vault at the Birmingham-Southern College Indoor Track and Field Invitational this past Friday. Jackson's best vault was 11 feet, 2 inches. She won last season's Class A Private state championship at 11-0, and was Gwinnett County champion at 11-1. On Sunday, the United States Marshals Service announced it has caught an international fugitive and child sexual predator from Gwinnett County who had been on the lam for nearly five years. U.S. Marshals teamed up Mexican authorities to arrest Brad A. Hatter of Gwinnett on December 3. Hatter was sent back to Georgia on December 4 and placed into detention where officials with the U.S. Marshals Service said he remains. In December 2005 in Gwinnett, Hatter, 58, was arrested for attempting to meet a 9-year-old girl for sexual activity. Officials said Hatter organized the encounter online and then went to the planned rendezvous location, where he was apprehended. In May of 2007, he was convicted of attempting to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity and sentenced to 108 months in prison. He was released from detention in September 2017 with the legal requirement to register as a sex offender and report to a supervising Federal Probation officer. On January 21st, 2018, Hatter allegedly stopped reporting to his probation officer, stopped registering as a sex offender and went into hiding. Probation officials immediately contacted the U.S. Marshals, who began their hunt. During the five-year search for Hatter, information was developed that he had left the United States and traveled to the Philippines. Later, he was located in Mexico — where he worked as a teacher. On Saturday, with the investigative assistance of the United States Marshals Service and after a brief pursuit, Hatter was apprehended by Mexican authorities, the U.S Marshals Service said. On Sunday, Hatter was returned to the United States and immediately placed into detention.   In his job as a mentor, trainer and assessor at Carrier Strike Group 4 in Norfolk, Virginia, Chief Petty Officer Reza Ghorashi-Sarvestani is responsible for utilizing his vast technical knowledge and training to help thwart cyber attacks on the U.S. Navy's East Coast fleet. And yet it seems that every time he visits family and friends in his hometown of Suwanee, this tech whiz comes close to getting lost. Reza says he has to use GPS to get around the growing town. For much of his 16-year career in the Navy, Reza has deployed on submarines and various commands in support of the Navy's information warfare and operations. Reza's main job is to bring sailors up to speed on the latest in cyber defense, on land and at sea. A 2004 graduate of North Gwinnett High School, he enrolled in Georgia Perimeter College right after graduation, but felt what he was learning wasn't lining up with his professional interests. Referring to himself as an “East Coast sailor all my life,” Reza began his Naval career as a fire control technician on submarines in Groton, Connecticut. He then began training to be an Information Systems Technician and pulled double duty on subs, taking the “side job” of tending to the vessel's computer network. He then taught incoming Information Systems Technicians in Groton (location of the Naval Submarine Base New London) and in 2012 transitioned into a Cryptologic Technicians Networks expert and was stationed with Crypto Warfare Group 6 in Fort Meade, Maryland (home of the National Security Agency, United States Cyber Command, the Central Security Service and the Defense Information Systems Agency). Prior to his arrival at Norfolk Naval several months ago, Reza was attached to Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command in Suffolk, Virginia, for four years. He said in his new position he enjoys “the best of both worlds.”   The long lines to get into the new Whataburger location in Kennesaw could be a look into what can be expected at The Exchange @ Gwinnett next year when the Buford Whataburger location opens its doors. Whataburger announced earlier this year that the Buford store would be one of six locations that the Texas-based restaurant chain planned to open in Georgia in 2023. Construction on the Buford restaurant has proceeded in the months since then, but the chain has not yet announced an exact opening date. The restaurant will have 3,746-square feet of space, according to development permits filed with Gwinnett County in March. In addition to the Buford location, which will overlook Buford Drive at the entrance to the Exchange @ Gwinnett, Whataburger will open locations in Cumming, Commerce, Dawsonville and two locations in Athens in 2023. A Woodstock location was expected to open by the end of this year. Last year, Snellville officials said the developer working on the Scenic Pointe on Scenic Highway had been in talks to include a Whataburger location in that development, and even included a rendering of a Whataburger location in its proposed site elevations that were submitted to city officials for consideration. A Snellville location was not mentioned in the chain's announcement about its metro Atlanta expansion in March, but county records show Whataburger submitted a building permit application to Gwinnett officials two days before Thanksgiving for a new store at 1436 Scenic Highway. The Kennesaw location opened to long lines of cars on Monday. On Friday, the drive-thru line for the restaurant wrapped around the building and out of parking lot and down a street behind the store. Two Cobb County police officers were on hand to direct traffic.   Gwinnett County police have asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into an officer involved shooting that resulted in the death of a man early Saturday morning in unincorporated Norcross. Gwinnett police were called to 1250 Tech Drive at about 1 a.m. on a report from a security guard about a suspicious person. The man was allegedly wielding a knife as he approached the security guard while she was in her patrol car in front of Food Depot and asked her if she was armed. A GCPD patrol officer and his supervisor were the first to arrive on scene. They both observed the man with a knife in his hand and proceeded to give verbal commands. The man refused demands to drop his knife and ran towards one of the officers. Both officers discharged their firearms. The suspect was shot in the torso. It is not clear what the man intended to do, according to police. The GBI has been requested because it was an officer-involved shooting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Defense Information Systems Agency's new Data Strategy Implementation Plan maps how the agency will use data as a strategic asset. At DefenseTalks, Roger Greenwell, director of the Enterprise Integration and Innovation Center and chief information officer at DISA and Josh Marcuse, head of strategy and innovation for public sector at Google Cloud, discuss DISA's approach to digital modernization and innovation. A five-year zero trust strategy is coming from the Department of Defense and will include more than 90 capabilities. David McKeown, senior information security officer and deputy chief information officer for cybersecurity at DOD, explains the Department's cybersecurity strategy. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Sarah Zabel is a retired U.S. Air Force major general and former vice director of the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency. After witnessing one of her best friends experience a sharp decline in mental health, she decided to embark on a journey to better understand depression so she could talk about it with her friend.… Continue Reading Is Your Brain Like A Computer – With Retired Major General Sarah Zabel

This is an episode for The Maverick Paradox @ KLDR Online Leadership Radio. Judith Germain hosts this radio show, and her guest today is Darrell Williams and they are discussing the importance of leaders having mentors. They share valuable information and examples on mentoring relationships and mentee successes as well as the difference between mentoring and coaching. This is a great conversation on how to make mentorship work. Darrell Williams is a Master Certified Life Coach, he is a member of the White House Communications Agency Hall of Fame. He is also the Chief, for Military Human Resources for Operations at the Defense Information Systems Agency. Judith shares the need for senior leaders to enable others to correct them without fear. They have an interesting conversation where Darrell shares his leadership hacks and surprises Judith with questions on Maverick Leadership that he has been pondering. If you wish to listen to The Maverick Paradox @KLDR Online Leadership Development Radio as the episodes are broadcasted, then visit the KLDROnline website. Judith's websites:  The Maverick Paradox Magazine - themaverickparadox.com Company Website - maverickparadox.co.uk Judith's LinkedIn profile is here, her Twitter profile (MaverickMastery) is here, Facebook here and Instagram here.

A longtime federal technology executive has a new private sector role. Dawn Meyerriecks retired last year as the deputy director of the CIA for science and technology. She served at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Information Systems Agency before that. She's now been appointed as a member of the board of directors at ColdQuanta. She talked with the Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the new role, and how it dovetails with her long experience in the federal government.

The Defense Information Systems Agency beat its own deadline to turn off its milCloud platform, a service that had a lot of DOD customers. DISA accomplished this goal a week ahead of schedule. Sharon Woods, the director of the Hosting and Compute Center at DISA, tells executive editor Jason Miller about what the end of milCloud means for the military services as they continue to move to cloud computing even without milCloud.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, CMMC requirements could be coming to contracts within the next year; and Medicare.gov gets a makeover. The State department lists edge computing as one of its highest priorities, technologically. It has more than 200 outposts around the world. Brian Merrick, Director of Cloud Programs at the State Department, explains why he calls cloud his agency's “Swiss Army Knife” for edge computing. Identity management is one of the key elements of the zero trust shift the federal government is undertaking, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Andre Mendes, the Chief Information Officer at the Commerce Department, describes what he found regarding ID management when he got to the department, and what he did about it. The Defense Information Systems Agency will run the Defense Department's huge Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability Program. The Department expects to make its award in December. Sharon Woods, the Executive Director for the Cloud Computing Program Office at the Defense Information Systems Agency, explains why cloud computing isn't a one-size-fits-all model. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the chief information officer of the National Archives is retiring this summer. The defense acquisition process needs more attention when it gets things right, according to President and CEO of the Professional Services Council David Berteau. Berteau, former assistant secretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness, discusses his recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Navy will test a concept called “Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations” as a deterrent to future conflict. Rear Adm. Jamie Barnett (USN, ret.), vice president for global communications solutions at Viasat Inc. and former deputy commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, explains the concept and why it's drawing attention in the Pentagon. The Defense Department's biggest cloud acquisitions will come from more than one vendor. Sharon Woods, executive director for the Cloud Computing Program Office at the Defense Information Systems Agency, tells FedScoop's Billy Mitchell how DOD is benefitting from a multi-cloud environment. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Six months ago the Defense Information Systems Agency embarked on its second reorganization in about five years. Now DISA, the organization in charge of much of the Defense Department's IT networks, says it's seeing results. Federal News Network's Scott Maucione spoke with DISA Deputy Director Christopher Barnhurst.

When the Defense Information Systems Agency decided to end its milCloud offering, it didn't mean the end of on-premise cloud options for its Defense customers. DISA is replacing that long-time, possibly underutilized offering with something new called Stratus. Sharon Woods, the director of Hosting and Compute Center at DISA spoke about how Stratus works with Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller on Ask the CIO.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the General Services Administration is prioritizing digital government in its new five-year plan. President Biden's budget request includes big increases for technology and cybersecurity, but that request comes out only a couple weeks after agencies received appropriations for this fiscal year. Dave Mader, civilian sector strategy officer at Deloitte and former controller at the Office of Management and Budget, discusses what agency leaders can expect for the coming months. One protest is already in on the new Polaris solicitation from the General Services Administration. BD Squared's protest alleges the solicitation may violate Small Business Administration regulations. Stephanie Mitchell, co-owner of BD Squared LLC and former program manager at Defense Information Systems Agency, discusses the difficulties small businesses are facing with the Polaris solicitation. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

The Defense Information Systems Agency couldn't escape a protest after awarding a big IT services contract. The General Services Administration is ready to expand its approach to simplifying online buying. These are just two of the week's biggest acquisition stories. Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller has been following them. He joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin for the highlights.

My guest Crystal Lee is a powerhouse of energy, light and positivity.   For over 20 years she has traveled the world serving our country in the US military. First as a Technical Sergeant with the Defense Information Systems Agency and culminating her military career in April 2020 as a Network Systems Architect with the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a child, Crystal loved acting, singing, and creating characters.  Her mother, who is Filipino and her father, who is of German/English descent, had encouraged and nurtured her creativity from an early age and so she resumed her love of performing and voice work to, in her words, “inspire people throughout the world to follow their dreams through storytelling, make-believe, visualization, and magic!” During her time in the service, Crystal utilized her voice acting talents while participating in field exercises and deployments.  Her voice's unique qualities rendered it invaluable when used to authenticate section callsigns and code-words. She also starred in multiple Armed Forces Network radio and television spots, did some modeling and Hawaiian/Tahitian/Belly dancing as creative outlets from the rigidity of military life.   After she retired, she did a short stint as a government contractor, then a government civilian and quickly realized that between the office politics and her unfulfilled feelings that it was time to leave government work altogether.  After doing so, she says her life opened up to a whirlwind of possibilities and it was time to create her own reality.   Crystal is now a voice actor specializing in voice-over for animation, commercials, and industrials, the Founder and CEO of Crystal J Productions, a service-disabled veteran, Belly Dancing nerd, and magical being, Crystal is an amalgamation of beauty, integrity, discipline, creativity, and quirkiness. Obviously the industry thinks so as well given her commercial demo was nominated for a SOVAS Award in 2021. To reach Crystal directly, you may do so via the following: Business Email Address: Crystal@CrystalJProductions.com Website(s): www.crystaljproductions.com and www.animatedvoiceovers.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crystaljproductions Instagram: @crystaljproductions Facebook: @crystaljproductions Twitter: @CrystalMLee_VO If you liked this episode, please remember to review, share and follow.  It's grealty appreciated ; - )    

Dawn Meyerriecks, former CTO for the Defense Information Systems Agency, joins host Aileen Black on this week's Leaders and Legends to talk about leading teams through big technology changes and the importance of caring for your people.

In this episode, White House Communications Agency Hall of Famer, Darrell Williams, shares leadership insights gathered while working in the White House during the George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations. The White House Communications Agency provides assured global information services to the President, Vice President, and others as directed, ensuring the White House is able to communicate with anyone, under any condition. Darrell Williams was determined to be one of the best to ever serve there. Listen in as Darrell talks about how in moments of crisis or great difficulty (like the aftermath of 9/11), your team members need to know that you care about them before you ask them to do anything. Once you have established your concern for their wellbeing, people will be ready to take on the toughest tasks. That's the “people always” part of the equation. Important missions bring stress. It's the nature of the job. In order to manage the stress, trust your training (i.e., Do what you've been trained to do in those situations), always plan for contingencies, and be willing to find out-of-the-box solutions. Take ownership of the issue and take initiative to find a solution.  When mistakes happen–and they inevitably will–empower people to take action and find a solution, make decisions, and move forward. The need to complete the mission does not change because something went wrong. If it's someone else's mistake, show grace when you can (i.e., don't seek to embarrass or make an example of the mistake) and make the experience an opportunity for them to learn. Highlight the learning and the creative solutions that were discovered.  Advice for success: Find a need (in your organization, family, community). Address the need using your talents and strengths. Repeat as long as there are needs in the world (you'll never run out of opportunities). You'll feel better about yourself, make a difference in people's lives, and learn along the way.  For more resources check out the links below!    Some of the big ideas from this episode include: Find a mentor – someone who has more experience than you do Seek out those who are at the top of their game Be eager to learn from the best Ask questions. Stay curious.  Raise the bar continuously Connect with Darrell:  Speaker Hub: https://speakerhub.com/speaker/darrell-williams Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allianceseminars LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrellwilliams Website: https://www.allianceseminars.org    More About Darrell:  Darrell Williams has led over 500 White House missions and following 9/11, he was selected as one of five key leaders to direct emergency action communications for the Vice President of the United States, including duty on Air Force Two. As a member of the military, Darrell was awarded the Presidential Service Badge, a prestigious award earned by relatively few members of the military throughout the history of the United States.  Darrell is now retired from active duty, but he is still serving. He is presently the Chief, Military Personnel for Operations, at the Defense Information Systems Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland where he supports nearly 500 members of the military from all branches of the service. He is also a professional speaker, workshop facilitator, and coach through Alliance Seminars Coaching.    Connect with Dr. Mike:  Website: https://www.drmikepatterson.com/ Book: https://www.missionfirstpeoplealwaysbook.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichaellpatterson/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealdrmikepatterson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmikepatterson Buy The Book!: Mission First People Always   Minute By Minute: 0:25 Welcome back! 0:40 Get to know Darrell  3:09 Why Darrell decided to join the armed forces 6:28 What it's like working in the White House 11:43 How Darrell felt with the pressure of the job 24:30 The most surprising thing about working with elites 28:30 What Darrell learned from 9/11 33:14 Making brave decisions 39:11 Identifying and meeting needs

The Defense Department is becoming more reliant on commercial cloud computing. That means it needs more than one option. The relatively tiny Defense Innovation Unit recently settled on Google Cloud for a production contract. The company's security framework around the cloud mirrors that of DISA's Cloud Access Point. Federal News Network's Scott Maucione talked about the contract with DIU cyber portfolio manager Richard Simon.

What is the data strategy for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)? How is DISA leveraging data as a strategic asset? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Caroline Kuharske, Acting Chief Data Officer, DISA. Listen to the podcast.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the General Services Administration is extending the transition deadline for the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract to September 2023. Bob Osborn, chief technology officer for global governments at ServiceNow and former chief information officer at the National Nuclear Security Administration, explains the challenges for agencies trying to transition to the contract while constantly operating under continuing resolutions. The Defense Department will go back to basics to shore up its acquisition workforce. Stan Soloway, president and CEO at Celero Strategies LLC and former deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition reform, discusses his takeaways from the back to basics strategy. The Defense Information Systems Agency is moving ahead with its Thunderdome program. Rob Carey, president at Cloudera Government Solutions and former chief information officer at the Navy, breaks down the importance of speed to deployment for the massive DOD network infrastructure while keeping the current network up and running. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Breaches of network and internet security are a constant threat to government operations for every agency. Foreign governments, private hackers and many bad actors in between are trying to hack government systems. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is no different and the task of securing information systems falls to Dr. Gregory Edwards, FEMA's Chief Information Security Officer.  Before his current position, Dr. Edwards joined FEMA in 2020 as the Senior Technical Advisor to the Office of the Chief Information Officer. He previously served as NATO Communications and Information Agency Director Infrastructure Services and Director of Service Operations and before joining NATO, he held executive management positions at the Defense Information Systems Agency. Dr. Edwards joined GovExec Daily to talk about information security in government.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the Assistant to the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency is retiring at the end of April. Chief information officers across government will get new measures on the next edition of the FITARA Scorecard. Richard Spires, principal at Richard A. Spires Consulting and former CIO at the Department of Homeland Security, explains what the new measures for IT modernization in government should be. The new Zero Trust Strategy from the Office of Management and Budget drives collaboration among some offices that may not have worked together before like they should. Donna Roy, strategic advisor for the national security sector at Guidehouse and former executive director of the Information Sharing and Services Office (IS2O) at DHS, explains how collaboration between Federal CDO Council and Federal CISO Council will be important in implementing the strategy. Diana Epstein, evidence team lead at OMB and Nichelle Johnson Billips, fellow at the White House Leadership Development Program, spoke at a recent National Academy of Public Administration event about how OMB will use their learning agenda to identify research that will support the president's management agenda. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Tucked into page 6, second paragraph down of the Defense Information Systems Agency's new strategic plan is a hum-dinger of a sentence. DISA says it wants to "eliminate the need for third party resellers, integrators" under the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability or JWCC program. In his weekly feature, the Reporter's Notebook, executive editor Jason Miller writes about this major policy change and why some in industry are unhappy. Jason joined the Federal Drive now to discuss.

Derren Burrell is the Founder & President of VVC, and also serves as Managing Partner. Before this role he served as the Chief Operating Officer for TAG Resources, LLC, a fiduciary outsourcing company with over $2 billion in assets under management. He is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary, Certified Defense Financial Manager, and Level 3 Certified in the Secretary of Defense Financial Management Program. Prior to his retirement from the Air Force, Derren was the Resource Director of the White House Communication Agency. He worked directly with senior White House staff, Congressional, comptroller, United States Secret Service, Department of State, and Defense Information Systems Agency staff in all aspects of financial and contract management in support of the President, managing nearly $350 million. While in this position he was selected for the rank of Colonel but decided to retire and move to Knoxville and into the private sector. Highlights of his 21-year military career include being deployed to Iraq as the Deputy Comptroller, United States Forces and in Afghanistan as the Resource Director, NATO Air Training Command. In this joint capacity he managed over $20 billion in U.S. appropriated funding in support of U.S. operations within the Iraq and Afghanistan Joint Operations Areas. He also served at the Pentagon as the flying operations analyst for the Air Force, where he was responsible for the largest Operations & Maintenance budget account in the Air Force, over $15 billion. He has been a squadron commander for both finance and wing staff agencies, and was a deployed Comptroller on the front line in Operations SEA SIGNAL, SOUTHERN WATCH, ALLIED FORCE, NEW DAWN, and ENDURING FREEDOM. Derren graduated from The Citadel with a BS in Business Administration, holds a MS in Cost Analysis from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a 2nd MS in Human Resources from Central Michigan University. Connect w/ Derren: Web: www.veteranventures.us/ LI: www.linkedin.com/in/derrenburrell Connect w/ Jovica Djurdjevic: Web: www.workwithjov.com Email: info@workwithjov.com LI: http://linkedin.com/in/jdjurdjevic

The Defense Information Systems Agency is letting its milCloud 2.0 offering expire in May 2022. Federal News Network has learned that DISA told the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Dec. 14 that it will not pick up the third option period with GDIT, which was supposed to happen in early June. The Federal Drive welcomed Federal News Network's Jason Miller with more on this breaking news.

Andy and Dave discuss the latest in AI news and research, [0:53] starting with OpenAI's announcement that it is making GPT-3 generally available through its API (though developers still require approval for production-scale applications). [3:09] For DARPA's Gremlins program, two Gremlin Air Vehicles “validated all autonomous formation flying positions and safety features,” and one of the autonomous aircraft demonstrated airborne recovery to a C-130. [4:54] After three years, DARPA announces the winners of its Subterranean Robot Challenge, awarding prizes for teams operating in the “real-world” in virtual space. [7:03] The Defense Information Systems Agency released its Strategic Plan for 2022 through 2024, which includes plans to employ AI capabilities for defensive cyber operations. [8:08] The Department of Defense announces a new cloud initiative to replace the failed JEDI contract, with invitations to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle to bid. [11:52] In research, DeepMind, Google Brain, and World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik join forces to peer into the guts of AlphaZero, with initial results showing strong evidence for the existence of “human-understandable concepts of surprising complexity” within the neural network. [17:48] Andrea Roli, Johannes Jaeger, and Stu Kauffman pen a white paper on how organisms come to know the world, and from these observations, derive fundamental limits on artificial general intelligence. [20:34] MIT Press makes available an elementary introduction to Bayesian Models of Perception and Action, by Wei Ji Ma, Konrad Paul Kording, and Daniel Goldreich. [23:40] And finally, Sam Bendett and Jeff Edmonds drop by for a chat on the latest and greatest in Russian AI and Autonomy – including an update on recent military expos and other AI-related events happening in Russia. https://www.cna.org/CAAI/audio-video

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the new National Defense Strategy the DoD is working on could include a larger cyber component than it ever has before, OPM's new Talent Surge Executive Playbook will give agencies tools to hire and keep the employees they need, & a reorganization at DISA is turning out to be a shot in the arm for that agency's cloud office. The new National Defense Strategy the Defense Department is working on could include a larger cyber component than it ever has before. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for cyber policy, Mieke Eoyang, said recently the next NDS will include cyber as a tool. Senior Vice President for Defense Programs at Owl Cyber Defense and former USMC Deputy Commandant for Information, Dan O'Donohue explains what “cyber as a tool” means, and what he'll look for, cyber-wise, in the next NDS. The Office of Personnel Management's new Talent Surge Executive Playbook will give agencies tools to hire and keep the employees they need. It's out just a short time after the Biden administration listed “strengthening the federal workforce” as its number one priority in the President's Management Agenda Vision. Host of Chief HRO.com and former Chief Human Capital Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Jeff Neal tells The Daily Scoop Podcast how agency leaders can make the most of the new (and old) concepts in the Playbook. A reorganization at the Defense Information Systems Agency is turning out to be a shot in the arm for that agency's cloud office. The Director of DISA, Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, says one goal of the reorg is to simplify its structure. In this highlight from the new episode of the Let's Talk About I-T podcast, Director of the Hosting and Compute Center at DISA, Sharon Woods tells Billy Mitchell in her portfolio, the reorg has done some interesting things. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, DISA has a new chief of staff, the Biden Administration's choice to take the Pentagon's top acquisition job is an experienced hand, and the new telework policy at USDA will let eligible employees work out of the office up to eight days every pay period. The Defense Information Systems Agency has a new chief of staff. Jackson Barnett is writing about Teresa Pitts for Fedscoop.com. The Biden Administration's choice to take the Pentagon's top acquisition job is an experienced hand. Bill LaPlante will take the Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment job if the Senate confirms him. President and CEO of Celero Strategies, Stan Soloway lists several reasons why LaPlante is a good fit for the job, and how he might collaborate with other leaders across the department. The new telework policy at the Agriculture Department will let eligible employees work out of the office up to eight days every pay period. The Assistant Secretary for Administration at USDA, Oscar Gonzales, says details for employees will be “based on the duties of the position.” Former CIO at the Commerce Department, Simon Szykman explains why agencies are already in good shape for a more permanent telework posture. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has made it clear: It wants to begin retiring the venerable common access card for multifactor authentication. Christoper Barnhurst, executive deputy director for DISA, said the agency is actively experimenting with other forms of multifactor authentication, which will eventually tie into the DoD's zero trust construct dubbed Thunderdome. Federal News Network's David Thornton joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for the latest.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the Department of Agriculture's Robotic Process Automation Branch is looking to grow its number of automations in FY2022. Dan Chenok from the IBM Center for The Business of Government says comments from Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana and General Services Administration Administrator Robin Carnahan shows the process of delivering citizen services is changing across federal government. Creating a joint program executive office or a lead combatant command may be key to the success of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), according to Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Maj. Gen. Garrett Yee, assistant to the director at the Defense Information Systems Agency, joins the podcast to discuss the new reorganization going on a DISA to create a more “flat” organization. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, an “Office of the Chief Data Officer” is coming to the Defense Information Systems Agency. A two-part interview with Air Force Chief Data Officer Eileen Vidrine, who explains how the Air Force is standing up a data innovation lab and how the force is growing data skills for airmen. More discussion on RFI's for Blanket Purchase Agreements on cloud from the General Services Administration with Larry Allen from Allen Federal Business Partners. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

The Defense Information Systems Agency's annual forecast to industry day last Friday in Baltimore was chock full of information about where the agency is spending its billions of dollars in 2022 and beyond. But what the more than 200 industry executives came away with was a clear message from DISA about what it really wants from contractors. In his weekly feature, the Reporter's Notebook, executive editor Jason Miller writes about what DISA expects from vendors over the next few years. Jason joined the Federal Drive to discuss.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is taking a hard look at its budget and program plans over the next year. Agency officials say they want to make sure they're making the right investments, especially as flat defense budgets loom on the horizon. For the latest, Federal News Network's Justin Doubleday.

In this episode of Life After the Military, Lee and Howie talk with US Army Master Sergeant (Retired) Darrell Williams. Darrell serves as the Chief, Military Human Resources, for the Defense Information Systems Agency. Darrell, a Master Certified Life Coach and Inspirational Speaker, started Alliance Seminars Coaching as a veteran-owned, faith-based organization that provides keynote speaking, certified workshops, and life coaching services to clients. Darrell provides excellent advice and mentoring for veterans seeking to work with the government and how to find and pursue your purpose.

When the Defense Information Systems Agency sought a new satellite services acquisition on behalf of the Navy, it included a spreadsheet so bidders could fill in their prices. But the spreadsheet included the prices from the current contract, which were supposed to be inaccessible. Uh oh. For how things turned out, Smith Pachter McWhorter procurement attorney Joe Petrillo.

Washington Technology and FCW staffers offer their early views on President Biden’s address to Congress where he proposed trillions in spending to create jobs and address myriad issues around climate change, national security and the nation’s infrastructure.That wasn’t the only big news to hit this week. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that Amazon’s challenge of the JEDI cloud award to rival Microsoft can continue. FCW also published a special report highlighting the trends driving activity at the Defense Information Systems Agency, one of the larger IT buyers in the federal market.Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers are joined by FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian and Senior Editor Lauren Williams discuss what these events mean and what’s coming next, including some topics that aren’t getting as much attention.

Derren Burrell, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) has over 25 years as a professional financial manager in both public and private sectors. He is the Founder & President of Veteran Ventures Capital, LLC, an investment and consulting firm focused on scaling veteran-owned and led businesses. In this capacity, he oversees all aspects of the company operations and fund management of the $100M Veteran Fund I. Prior to this he served as the Chief Operating Officer for TAG Resources, LLC, a retirement service company with over $2 billion in assets under management (AUM), where he was responsible for tripling the AUM and doubling the company. He is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary, Certified Defense Financial Manager, and Level 3 Certified in the Secretary of Defense Financial Management Program.Prior to his transition to the private sector in 2015, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Burrell was the Resource Director of the White House Communication Agency. He worked directly with senior White House (WH) staff, Congressional, comptroller, United States Secret Service, Dept of State, and Defense Information Systems Agency staff in all aspects of financial and contract management in support of POTUS. While in this position he was selected for the rank of Colonel but decided to retire from his 21-year military history and transition to the private sector.Highlights of his military career include being deployed to Iraq as the Deputy Comptroller, United States Forces – Iraq, and in Afghanistan as the Resource Director, NATO Air Training Command – Afghanistan. In this joint capacity, he led the 34- person J8 directorate (Iraq) and the 4-person J8 office (Afghanistan) in planning, resourcing, and executing $20 billion + in the U.S. appropriated funding in support of U.S. operations within Iraq and Afghanistan Joint Operations Areas. He was also stationed at the Pentagon as the flying operations analyst for the Air Force, where he was responsible for the largest Operations & Maintenance budget account in the Air Force, over $15 billion. He has been a squadron commander for both finance and wing staff agencies and was a deployed Comptroller on the front line in Operations SEA SIGNAL, SOUTHERN WATCH, ALLIED FORCE, NEW DAWN, and ENDURING FREEDOM.He is a graduate of the Citadel and past recipient of several awards including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medals, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Air Force Budget Officer of the Year twice, Air Force Financial Management Officer of the Year, Comptroller of the Year, and USAFE James E. Short Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mentorship and Career Development.Derren is married to the former Gloria Frey and they have 5 children: Lydia, Luke, David, Rebekah, and Nathanael.Target Industries - Defense / Aerospace / Governmental (National Security, etc) sectorsConnect On LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrenburrell/Link To Website - https://www.veteranventures.us/

Good morning, it's Thursday, March 18th and this is The Herald Review's podcast, the Daily Chirp. We're excited to bring you a closer look at top stories, events in the community, local history, sports, and more.    Today -  Legislators join groups promoting effort to decide future of wall   Before we begin, some local history.   In 1929 Nickolas George Ramus was born. Ramus was a Native American actor, best known for his appearances on television. He starred in the first Native American language film, 1980s Windwalker, and also appeared briefly in the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and in the comedy film Love at Stake as Chief Wannatoka.   Also, The Daily Chirp podcast is giving away 5 Amazon Echo Dots - one every month now through July. You can enter for your chance to win twice a day! Today's code is DUNK, and find the other codeword in our e-newsletter “The Morning Blend”. To enter the sweepstakes go to myheraldreview.com, again today's codeword is: DUNK.   Now, our feature story.    With the end of the moratorium to stop construction of the border wall, former U.S. officials and environmental and community activists want to know what Biden and the new Director of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas have in mind.   Arizona Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva and Anne Kirkpatrick along with six other U.S. representatives sent a letter to Biden applauding his decision to shut down construction.   The letter stated “We urge you to meaningfully consult with border communities that have been impacted by the construction, including tribal members, and stakeholders. We ask that the DHS develop a meaningful environmental mitigation plan for the borderlands with local stakeholders,”    They also asked Biden to cancel all construction contracts and not initiate any more construction activities. Instead, they request remaining funds be diverted to mitigate harms from the wall - like the destructive environmental damage and destruction of sacred sites.   They point out the Trump administration which used executive privilege 29 times to waive 84 federal environmental, historical and cultural laws and countless state and local laws.    Local and tribal communities had no say when the decision to build a wall along the southern border was made.    The letter ends by stating that “Urgent action is necessary to address the damage”   More details could come this week, so check in with us at myheraldreview.com for the latest updates. Thanks for listening, before we continue, a quick message from our sponsors, Prestige Family Living.    Next, we'd like to highlight a community update.   Brought to you by ApexNetwork Physical Therapy. Voted Best of Cochise County 2020, ApexNetwork provides exceptional care to the Sierra Vista and Benson communities. Choose ApexNetwork for all of your physical therapy needs. To learn more, go to ApexNetworkPT.com. A small shopping center, long a fixture in the city's West End, is no more.   Crews reduced the four spaces at Fry Boulevard and Fab Avenue which once included a beloved barber shop and a bookstore to rubble.   The city of Sierra Vista purchased the property — referred to as the “little red shopping center” and an adjacent vacant lot last fall for $230,000. City planners are hoping the area will be an extension of Sierra Vista's West End revitalization.   Next, an upcoming event in our community that you should know about  -- brought to you by our sponsors, Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative.   This morning, head over to the Sierra Vista Farmers Market! It starts at 10am, and if you can't make it today don't worry - stop by on any Thursday all year long. Vendors include Ruth's Garden, Sky Island Brand Meats, Thunder Mountain Ranch, Simmons Honey Ranchito, The Lettuce Man, and Estrada Citrus!   See you there!   Finally, today we're remembering the life of Leo Charles Scherping of Hereford. Leo was born on September 11, 1937 in Houghton Lake Heights, Michigan.   Leo is a veteran of Vietnam, and retired after a 30 year career in the Army. For six years he was selected to serve in the White House Communications Agency providing communications for the President and Vice President of the United States. After his military retirement, he spent six years with the Defense Information Systems Agency at Fort Huachuca.   He was active in the local flying community as a private pilot and FAA certificated A&P Mechanic. Leo loved flying with the Young Eagles and giving his time to help foster interest in general aviation. As an officer in the EAA Chapter 776, he also served as the technical advisor to Homebuilt Aircraft builders.   Leo enjoyed spending time with his Friday Lunch Bunch talking about aviation.   Leo accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior while in Vietnam and continued his growth in the Body of Christ throughout his life. Leo's faith in God sustained and comforted him until the end.   He will be greatly missed. Thank you for taking a moment with us today to remember and celebrate Leo's life.   Thanks for tuning in to the Herald Review podcast today, join us again on Friday! And remember, the Herald Review is here for you with local news you can trust. For more information on any of the stories you heard about today, visit us at myheraldreview.com. Right now you can become a member starting at just $1.99 per week.   Want to stay up to date on what's going on? Join NABUR Support the show: https://www.myheraldreview.com/site/forms/subscription_services/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On behalf of F5 and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast, focused around zero trust, where Scott Rose, computer scientist at NIST and a co-author on NIST's 800-207, Zero Trust Architecture publication; Gerald Caron, Director of Enterprise Network Management for the Department of State; Brandon Iske, Chief Engineer at DISA; and Jason Wilburn, zero trust engineer at F5, will discuss the pros and cons of different zero trust designs, how other federal initiatives tie into zero trust, and understanding what zero trust principles do for cybersecurity posture. Ryan Johnson: Thank you. Once again thanks, everyone, for joining. My name is Ryan Johnson. I'm a solutions engineering manager with F5 Government Solutions. Today, we have a group of exciting guests, mostly from the federal space, to discuss zero trust in theory and talk about the implementation of zero trust. First off, I have Scott Rose with NIST. Scott, would you like to talk a little bit about yourself?Scott Rose: Sure, thanks. I'm Scott Rose. I am currently at the Information Technology Lab at NIST. I am the coauthor of the NIST special publication 800-207, Zero Trust Architecture, and also, attached as a subject matter expert for the upcoming NCCOE, or National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence Project on Zero Trust Architecture.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Scott. If anyone hasn't had a chance to read that 800-207, definitely take a look. It's well worth your time. Next off, we have Gerald Caron who's with HHS. Gerald, would you like to tell us a little about yourself?Gerald Caron: Well, I'm on detail to HHS, but technically I am the representative of the Department of State, then SES. I'm the director for Enterprise Network Management at the Department of State. Basically, the infrastructure person, do the network, active directory, a lot of the security implementation aspects of things. I am participating and starting to co-chair the CIO's innnovation council working group on zero trust. I am Forrester certified and zero trust strategist as well.Ryan Johnson: Very good. Thank you, Gerald. Next up, we have Jason Wilburn with F5 Networks. He's identity and access guru or [inaudible 00:02:20], if you will. Jason, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?Jason Wilburn: Sure. Thanks, Ryan. So, I'm a system engineer, covering the system integrator space for F5 Federal. But as Ryan mentioned, I am also the co-lead for [inaudible 00:02:35], which is anything related to access and authorization controls or access policy manager product.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Jason. Next up, we have Brandon Iske with DISA. Brandon, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself.Brandon Iske: Yes, thank you, Ryan. So, I'm Brandon Iske. I'm the Chief Engineer for our Security Enablers Portfolio. So, that includes ICAM or Identity and Credential Access Management, Zero Trust reference architecture development, Public Key Infrastructure, PKI, and then Software Defined Enterprise. So, I'm part of the Defense Information Systems Agency. Again, it's a [inaudible 00:03:12] support agency to the Department of Defense. Thank you.Ryan Johnson: Well, thank you, Brandon. There are two topic we're going to talk about. The first is behind the theory Zero Trust, understanding federal zero trust straight from the source. The second topic is the reality, the implementation of zero trust. So, jumping into the first topic, the theory. This question to you, Scott Rose. You're one of the authors of NIST 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture. Can you tell us briefly what problem zero trust is trying to solve, and what are the main goals?Scott Rose: Well, yeah, zero trust is the new paradigm of how you want to look at enterprise security. Basically it's taking a lot of the trends that we saw emerging over the last 10 years or so and pulling them together and layering them together to solve what we see is like company attacks that the common script from attacks that you see are going out there. It's where the initial breach happens. The attacker then moves laterally through the network, and then performs the actual attack ransomware, data exfil, whatever. Then they're not discovered until the next audit, some six, eight months later.Zero trust tries to minimize that kind of attack scenario where you segment away, you micro segment away resources, you do endpoint security, you do strong authentication both inside the infrastructure, on-prem as well as outside coming in to limit that lateral movement and make sure that every connection from a client to an enterprise and resource is both authenticated and authorized. The ideas that you want to try, don't rely on your perimeter defenses anymore, but you're doing it every step of the way. So, there's a little mini perimeter around like now, every resource and every user. So, you always have, at least, more knowledge, not total knowledge, of what's going on in your enterprise.Ryan Johnson: Thank you Scott. This next question is for you, Gerald. What is the biggest misconception about zero trust?Gerald Caron: First of all, the level setting on the definition that I find is most difficult and people really understanding. No offense to any of the vendors here, but depending on who you talk to, they spend the definition their own way. So getting that common understanding of what zero trust is, is really important. Some people think its identity, but it's a little more than that. As Scott was saying, it's about protecting what's important and shifting that paradigm in that culture that we do. We're very compliance-focused culture. FISMA makes us that way, put our scorecards, things like that.But I think zero trust gets us to a more effective cybersecurity posture. Commonly, we've done that peanut butter spread approach, where we try to protect everything equally, with Frederick the Great says, "If you try to protect everything equally, you protect nothing." That quote up, basically, but great IT innovator that he was. But really that peanut butter spread approach is not sustainable. You can't cover everything you can't 100 be and 100% patched when you have 109,000 workstations across the world. It's pretty unlikely.So what's important, as Scott was talking about? What's important? Definitely, if you need to understand what zero trust is. You're grappling with that definition. Yes, definitely. Don't suggest, but do read 800-207. I believe, and Scott would agree with me that, that's going to morph as new technologies and capabilities and concepts come about, that that is going to morph and mature as we go along on this journey as well.Ryan Johnson: Yeah, I would agree with you on that. This next question's to Brandon. Looking ahead, what are the next or the biggest stumbling blocks for creating a zero trust environment?Brandon Iske: Thank you for that question. So from my perspective, I think within DISA and DoD again, we're a very large environment. So I think from our vantage point, just trying to set the standards is really what where we're at. So again, we very much leverage the 800-207 as a framework for DoD and what we develop for the zero trust reference architecture. So, we've recently approved that. So that's available internal to the DoD right now. So that's our way to get the common framework, and language, and taxonomy established across the department.Other trends, we see, again a lot of the pillars of zero trust really do rely on existing capabilities and cybersecurity efforts that we have. From my vantage point, I think there are a few gaps in those technologies, at least, for what the department has adopted from an enterprise perspective. So, I'll talk on some of those. Again, it's making sure we're doing the existing capabilities, whether it's ICAM, whether it's endpoint, whether it's network segmentation. All those things really have to start coming together. Again, it's eliminating those stove pipes and enabling more API access to these capabilities, tighter integration, and really trying to drive towards conditional access beyond just what we do with PKI, CAC, or PIV today.The one gap I see the department has been looking at pretty heavily across the board is as how do we access our IL5 cloud environments from commercial internet. Really with COVID and mass telework, that's been a big challenge for us is to enable secure, collaboration, and access to applications and data, but still from most of us being off the network. So, for [inaudible 00:09:07] that's a big challenge because, in those cases, a lot of our designs assume all the users are on inside the perimeter. So, this concept really changes that or turns the problem on its head. So again, that's secure access.We're also looking at some of the SASE-type capabilities or secure access edge capabilities. But even in that space, the duty is large. We're not going to be able to just use one vendor across the board. So, trying to drive interoperability of those capabilities, looking at what's best of breed, but also how can we... I don't want to have 10 agents on my computer just to be able to get to different applications across the department. So those are some of the big challenge I think we still see us ahead beyond just the obvious cultural challenges of getting everyone to understand the concept, build their maturity model towards that, and then adopt these concepts and integrations.Ryan Johnson: Yeah. I would definitely agree with you. This is not a single vendor solution by any means. This will be a grouping of different vendors to maybe some homegrown stuff to address these type of issues. Thank you, Brandon. Next question is to Jason Wilburn. Zero trust makes identity to the new perimeter. Why does zero trust take this approach?Jason Wilburn: So, one of the things that I always laugh when I hear that it's the new perimeter because I've heard that it's the new perimeter for 10 years. I think I even have it coined from F5 from eight years ago, they said identity is the new perimeter. So I guess my wife's car that's 10 years old is still new to her. So, the fact is, is identity, really, is a linchpin in a zero trust infrastructure because without identity, you can't really secure anything because we have to know who that person is or what is making that request. That becomes really important in a couple of things.One is the account creation. Are we creating accounts? Where do those accounts live, and how many entities of that identity actually just wrote an organization because the identity of John Smith can exist in multiple places? Really, what we're trying to do is to reduce the number of identities down to really holistically one single identity for, say, John Smith. But also, the next piece and that is really getting down to how they authenticate or how they assert themselves inside of the environment. That really gets down to things like multifactor neighbor, or if we can really get to the holy grail of going full password, which in the federal space we do a lot of password list-based authentication, doing things like smart cars, CAF, PIV, things like that.That's really what we're trying to do is truly validate that that user is who they really are because to truly achieve zero trust, a lot of things revolve around one knowing who that user is and then once that user starts doing things within the network, really, should he be able to do those things in this network based off the permission levels and their user behavior and the device they're coming from, and where they're going to, but it all really revolves around the first step, and that user... they're truly identifying who that user is.Ryan Johnson: Yeah. That ties into what everyone else has said, as well Jason. Appreciate that. The-Gerald Caron: Ryan, can I add something to that question?Ryan Johnson: Absolutely.Gerald Caron: That identity of the new perimeter thing really scares me because then people get super focused on identity and say [inaudible 00:12:57] zero trust. That's just a, for lack of a better term, a pillar. Everything Jason said is absolutely important. But if Jason's account got compromised, for instance, what's the first two questions probably the cyber guy is going to ask that's looking at the problem? What did he have access to, and is there [inaudible 00:13:16]?So it actually becomes about the data more than anything. So, it's about protecting that data at the end of the day. So I think it's really important. I think one of the things that, really, an identity itself is we do it very linear today, where it's one-time authentication, it's one-time access and then. Okay. Have a nice day. It's got to be a constant dynamic checking and rechecking of many other factors, as well as authentication and access. It's going to be continuous.Jason Wilburn: Yeah. You're completely right, Gerald. Identity really is just one more data point to determine access to something, right?Gerald Caron: Yeah, I totally agree. I just like to clarify that that's just one piece of it. [crosstalk 00:14:01].Ryan Johnson: Not the entire enchilada, if you will.Gerald Caron: Correct because I see a lot of people talk about it that way.Jason Wilburn: No, no.Ryan Johnson: Yeah, I would agree with you on that because a lot of places aren't doing that currently, and they think this is the solution, but it's just, like you said, part of the solution.Jason Wilburn: Right. The enforcement point, like to take back to Scott's document, with the 207, the enforcement point's right, they will know about the identity, but the enforcement point takes in a lot more consideration beyond just the user's identity. There's all that telemetry data that we're getting in. What's the machines coming from? What they're trying to access? There's lots more information than just the user identity to determine access control.Gerald Caron: Right. It's not always a human, right.Jason Wilburn: That's right.Gerald Caron: There's data flowing all the time and then there's data at rest. So, you got to protect that. There's not always the human involved.Jason Wilburn: Completely right. So let's go down the road of what do we do with the service account that's coming from and making an API call from one PC to another PC in the same data center. How do you validate that and secure that beyond really when I think... a lot of times when we talk about zero trust, a lot of times we talk about remote users or just users in general, talking to resources and what we've been trying to get away from [inaudible 00:15:24] the user doesn't really matter where they live, whether they live in corporate environment or whether they live at home, or they're in Starbucks, where the user live resides doesn't really matter because at a network level, that's just an IP address.We care about, one, how did they authenticate; and two, what device are they trying to access from, not just... is he on the corporate... The corporate land might give us more information and more telemetry by just being on the WiFi at Starbucks, but it's more than identity definitely.Ryan Johnson: One thing that really hits home for me is the proliferation of modern applications, and API's talking everything. You got APIs on the cloud or even within the same agency or interagency or app, however, and Gerald's point about these non-human interactions verifying those, especially, when it's so spread out with different APIs. To me that really hits home. The next question is to Scott. There are multiple architectures listed in the 800-207. Why would an organization choose one architecture over another?Scott Rose: Basically, as they need to look at whatever they're trying to push a zero trust architecture on, what workflow, what mission they're doing, all that will help decide which model will fit best for them. You got to take into account, both what they may already have owned or what technology needs they have, what can they just... what they can use anyway, just configure in a different way. Let's say they already went with vendor A and they have an installed base, but there are certain features that they're not using now, but as they move towards a zero trust architecture, they just turn those on because some things work better than others, some solutions require like agents installed, may not be able to put agents on things, especially if you're looking at [inaudible 00:17:28] an IoT kind of deployment. You can't push a lot of agents on the small form devices, but you have to go with a different model there.But when it comes to the approaches that we described, like the enhanced identity governance, microsegmentation, software-defined perimeters, I think of the most mature as zero trust enterprises and architectures out there will have elements of all three. Those three approaches, we're just calling those like what is the load bearing technology that you're using in your architecture, whereas the models are more of what kind of products are you using, that dictates the model. Whereas like what technology are you putting the emphasis on, whether you're the identity management governance part, the micro segmentation parts, or using a software-defined networking or software-defined perimeter model. All those depends what's you're doing in that initial analysis, both what is the mission or workflow that you're working on to try and make more secure, and then you develop the other set of policies and controls around those, and then those guide you as to which model that you may be going towards.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Scott. Appreciate that. Next question is to Gerald. Looking into the future, what's next in zero trust? What technologies are going to impact zero trust security or require security in a different way than we see right now?Gerald Caron: Technology moves so fast nowadays, you can't keep up. As I'm speaking right now something new, something new just come out that I don't know about. But Brandon, I think, mentioned SASE and edge computing. I think that's something that people are very much looking at services through the cloud. One of the things I advocate for that I'm looking at is I hate being tethered to an on-premise network. We're in a new normal. Everybody's working mobily now. I have to Boomerang back just to go back out to the cloud on the internet. So, how can I be untethered but to have all the security that I need in telemetry to make the right decisions is something that I'm looking at. So, it's something that I advocate for as well.So, technology is moving so fast. I think some are a little more mature than others in this space. But I see it's going to be very much competitive because we're all looking this way now. I think, as I said before, we're all trying to become more effective at our cybersecurity, not just check marks and coming compliant. We really need to protect the data and then the things that we need to protect. I equate I get to protect the crown jewels versus the bologna sandwich. You can have my bologna sandwich. But I'm going to put my concentration on those crown jewels.So understanding what's important to you and understanding what the heck is your risk posture. A lot of people struggle with accepting and understanding what their risk is. There is a lot of non-technical aspects to zero trust that people need to understand, the methodologies, what is your risk tolerance and the processes, and what is the data, and where is your data, and what is that categorization of that data. Those are all non-technical things. There's a lot of work in those areas that people do struggle with that I find. So, there's a lot. But I see every day talking with a lot of vendors, there's a lot of maturity in the space, and I just look forward to seeing some of the capabilities because there's a lot of concepts in 800-207, like I talked about ongoing authentication and ongoing access.Right now, it's very linear still. That's something that would be maturing that people are looking at doing so. I think there's a lot. I look forward to it because a lot of people are putting their emphasis here, especially, with what we just experienced with the solar winds. There's a lot of focus in this area now, even more so if there wasn't before.Brandon Iske: Ryan, if I can add in there, I think, Gerald is spot on. I think, as we can build towards more dynamic access, conditional access, and then having applications be aware of that context to govern what I can and can't do what's on that application. I think that's where... As all this comes together, those are the type of outcomes that we start to get at, whether if I'm from a personal device and maybe a low-assurance model, maybe I can't download attachments or something, but I can view those or view some content. So, those additional granular controls, I think, start to come out there, become achievable once we have some of these capabilities, conditional access and aggregation of telemetry together as well.Jason Wilburn: If I can jump in, too, Ryan. I think that just being able to absorb the additional telemetry data, whether it be some sort of behavioral analytics coming out of a risk engine, just coming out of various security tools, I thought had mentioned this before, the breaking down of the silos between the team. I think that's one of the biggest things about zero trust. Holistically, from a security model perspective, what we're saying is that, hey, it all needs to work together as a single point of control that is closest to the resource, that Gerald mentioned. There can be some context around it that no longer is it just the firewall blocking IPEs and things like that, and DLP looking at data exfil, and antivirus looking at what's happening on the server from a virus perspective or malware happening on the client. It all needs to work together, and it all needs to come back because that becomes part of the behavior or of the workflow that's happening between the client and the resources for accessing so that we can truly understand, is this a permitted flow? Yeah, this is a permitted user coming from a permitted device to a resource that it should have allowed to.But based off not just what happened at the very beginning of the session, but what's happening throughout the life of the session, what's changed throughout the life of the session, that becomes critically important to really secure everything day one because back to Gerald's data exfil comment. Cool. You've got access to the data right now. Should you be able to download some document or upload some document five minutes into the session based off what something has changed? Maybe not.Ryan Johnson: Yeah, I agree that's what we're trying to get to. All right. That concludes the first topic of the theory. Now, we're going to jump into the second topic, the reality, adopting zero trust. The first question is once again to Scott Rose. What components are available to federal entities to assist in forming zero trust architecture?Scott Rose: Well, most of these are not real solid technologies, but it's more of frameworks and things that may help. There are existing government programs already out there. Both like a DHS, they have their CDM program. There's FICAM, things like that. These are already in place to actually build these, kind of like what Gerald called the pillars of zero trust. They've already been in place for a while. We looked at how zero trust extends those, how those reliant on those programs.I mean, as well as we have for NIST, there's the risk management framework. That isn't the end all be all, but you can think of that as a tool to help one level down. Once you've developed that architecture, the RMF can maybe help develop that set of controls and checks in place to actually ensure that what you're doing, you're implementing correctly to your stated goals. These things are in place that are basically technology neutral, that whatever vendors you're using, you can always apply these frameworks and tools to help along the way.In a way, that NIST, the Special Publication 800-207, that's also... think of that as a framework, [inaudible 00:25:53] just both on the architects, but also the way that the architects can then talk to the procurement people. They can, hopefully, understand what exactly you want. So when the procurement and the architects talk to the vendors, they're all speaking that same set of term, not just [inaudible 00:26:09] randomly zero trust or something like that. There's actually a set of rules and uses for these technologies that they can both use as a common set of terms.Ryan Johnson: All right, next question... Thanks again for that, Scott. Next question is for Gerald. What are the things that enterprise needs to understand before migrating to ZTA or zero trust architecture?Gerald Caron: That's a really good question. Think of the difficulty that some folks are going to have. I mentioned the data, understanding the data, where it is, where it's going and what classification it is. The where it's going. Where is it normally go? What is the flow? What is normal look like? How do you baseline normal? That's going to be really difficult because understanding what normal looks like will depend on when something happens now, what actions do I have to take? So understanding where that data flow is, where that data resides, what it is, who owns it because you're going to have to work with data owners. It's going to take a village. It's not just the network guys, not just the IT guys. It's going to take a village to do with zero trust in my estimate at an agency.But, as Scott was saying, be on the same page with terminology and things like that. But I think that's the difficult part. I think that answers one of the questions is how do you know what abnormal is? Well, you got to know what normal looks like to know what abnormal looks like. So I think that's really important. So, I like the inside out method, that start with the data, and then all right, what's facilitating access to that data. Device app. What do you do with those things, and then work back to the identity, given the right access to the right people at the right time.We talked about this from the end user standpoint a lot. I want to go back to this. The administrators as well are very powerful. So you have to address the administrators. I think that gets lost a lot of times when people start talking about... They talk about users accessing data. Well, your administrators need to be addressed as well in a zero trust. So that's something that's difficult.The one other thing I would say that's difficult, Ryan, is that we all, as different agencies, we all share data, we all classify it differently. If I want to share with Brandon a certain amount of data, I do sensitive but unclassified, but he may classify it in a different way. Where do we meet when we want to share data with those different classifications, so that we can properly do that? Then when I give Brandon my data, it's my data. He's going to be a good steward for it. If he doesn't have the right things in place, now, I've put my data out there. So, how can we all get on that same page? Interagency sharing is I think going to be a challenge as well.Ryan Johnson: Absolutely. It makes complete sense. That's a big, big challenge. Next question is for Brandon. Is it necessary to have a ZTA if the enterprise does not utilize cloud resources?Brandon Iske: Thank you for that question. I would say absolutely. Again, the threat is the same whether you're in the cloud or not. So, whether you have disconnected resources, or closed networks, or connected networks. You still have very similar threats to some extent. So I think it absolutely applies. Again whether you look across the pillars, whether it's identity or endpoint, we still have to do those same things and even what we're doing in DoD to enhance our identity ICAM processes. Again, it's all about authentication and account lifecycle management. Those are the big pieces that... We still have a long journey to get to from an enterprise perspective to get those under control in a better fashion than what we do today.We have CAC or PIV programs that are very strong, but again, those are a strong authenticator. It's the entire lifecycle of the additional pieces of identity that come into play. Again, all those same concepts apply regardless of where the data or applications exist. Other efforts that we've done in this arena as well, too, I would say is our cloud-based internet isolation. So again, this is a way that we move the end user browsing to a cloud environment for our actual benefit. So, in this case, basically, my browsing session is going to be terminated in a cloud environment. From a data protection and exploit perspective, those drive by downloads basically would happen in that cloud environment, not on my endpoint. So, it actually comes to help us also in this mass telework environment as well, too.So, I can split my traffic going straight to the cloud for browsing and not backhaul that all the way back to the VPN to come on to the internal network. So, that's given us a few really big benefits, again, in a very hybrid model where in some cases, we're using cloud; in other cases, we still have a huge set of legacy that's still going to be on-prem for the foreseeable future until they modernize or whatever schedule they have to modernize.Jason Wilburn: Brandon, if I could ask a question about the browser isolation component. Is this going to be in when a user is accessing internal resources inside of the agencies, or is this going to be also a service that's internet-facing? So, when a user's setting on-prem or anywhere, and he's now going to the internet once they go to Google, is all internet traffic really going to be browser isolated? Is that the envisioning?Brandon Iske: So, it is what we're doing. So, the basically .com or any commercial internet browsing [inaudible 00:31:55] capability [inaudible 00:31:57] .mil is going to bypass that. So, whether I'm on a VPN or the .mil resources already internet facing, those are the [inaudible 00:32:08]. So I mean, basically, you're not routing either way. So, it does allow us to basically not be backhauling that traffic back onto the doden or [inaudible 00:32:16] for duty terminology, for our internal network.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Brandon. Next question is to Scott Rose. Looking to the future, what is next in zero trust? What technologies are going to impact it or acquired in a different way than what we see right now? I love the question.Scott Rose: Yeah. I don't know for sure because everybody makes predictions and are constantly surprised about how they don't pan out. But at least in the near term, I see a lot of people focusing both on IoT like we are as well. How do you get those and manage those in an automatic fashion? So, you don't actually have to have human administrators going out and touching all those devices or doing something to those devices. They're getting to the point where you can just quickly get them onboard them onto a network. You know exactly what they're doing because they say what they're doing in [inaudible 00:33:19]. Manufacturer vouches for them. You onboard them, you have go through the entire lifecycle, and you offboard them if you need to all in a more streamlined automated fashion. That's going to be coming on as people look for IoT solutions.The other one is we're seeing more people looking at machine learning when it comes to developing user profiles as feedback to what we call like the policy engine or the trust algorithm moving on. Building up again, what does this user normally do in order to see when something abnormal happens? You always [inaudible 00:33:57] this. You have a person, say, working in HR, and they connect to this database with all the user information. They do roughly, say, three to five gigs of traffic going back and forth from this database a day. Suddenly, you see that jump up to 800 gigs. That should cause a red flag going up because that's abnormal. But then again, maybe it's because there's the annual performance review, where they're downloading everything and going through everything.Maybe that happens every year at a certain time. Then again, you're building up that profile saying, "Okay, we know that does happen at a certain timeframe. So what happens outside of that timeframe, then maybe something strange is going on." Those kind of trends we're seeing, just try and improve the dynamic nature of zero trust. That's kind of the things that are just on the horizon and starting to appear.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Scott. Next question is for Gerald. What mistakes or what are the biggest misunderstandings with zero trust in the industry or within federal entities right now?Gerald Caron: Definition. Understanding the totality of zero trust, understanding as a full architecture, full framework. People talk about it in bits and pieces. Unfortunately, some vendors will talk about zero trust, but you got to understand the whole landscape of it because they may come in and do the authentication and access management piece, but not do the data segmentation piece, or the app hardening piece, or network mapping for understanding where your data's flowing and things. So, understanding that it's not just a one-product thing. It is truly going to be an integration. It's going to take a whole effort, a whole village to do it.So, really understanding and getting level set, and understanding the use cases and understanding what your risk tolerance is, is very important. What are you willing to take risk for? What's important to you? Putting your emphasis on what's important. The cafeteria schedule, okay. But your medical records, I'm going to put a little more emphasis on that probably than the cafeteria schedule. So, and understanding where does that reside? How do I protect that and things? So, really understanding what it is you're trying to accomplish, and then we all have our little special snowflakes in all of our different agencies. So, what is our little spin on things? So understanding what your use cases are, I think's really important.Ryan Johnson: Thank you, Gerald. Next question is for Jason. Let's go to another identity question, Jason. If identity is a new perimeter, what should federal agency entities consider when looking at making identity their enforcement point? How is this achieved?Jason Wilburn: So, it's not going to be the enforcement point. It's just going to be another piece of information, a data point that can be used by an enforcement point. To Gerald's point, it needs to be looked at holistically. Identity just needs to be one part of it. I think the biggest thing is understanding really where are all your identities within an organization. Are they all in active directory? Are they all in a SaaS-based [inaudible 00:37:22]? Do each application have their own directory structure? So, while you think that John Smith's account only exists in say active directory, it might exist in multiple locations. So then you need a good strategy to onboard identity, decommission identity, and then also validate identity. That means back into needing some sort of MFA or a good authentication method.Ryan Johnson: Next question is to Scott. What are the concerns a federal entity needs to understand before migrating to ZTA?Scott Rose: Well, the concerns I need to think or that they need to worry about is, basically, they need to know what they do, they need to know their mission, they need to know the risks inherent to that they're doing their mission, and then they need to know what they have, who both.... These are accounts of the network, the devices, the workflows, they need to have those knowledge at first. They need to be able to detect and monitor things previously before they can actually start moving down this road to zero trust because you can't really build a policy and a set of checks around things that you don't actually know. So, those are the main concerns.Other concerns are how it will impact the users. We need to educate them to make sure everybody else is onboard because if the other kind of operating units in an organization or a federal agency or something, if they're not onboard, there's going to be a problem because the way things are... because they may result in the changes of the workflow of [inaudible 00:39:02] times. They're accessing things. What permissions they have or don't have? There's always that learning curve when you're trying to actually refine these policies. If that becomes aggravating, they're going to start trying to find ways around it. That's the last thing you want because then you have the shadow IT springing up behind it and things that you've sorted all these strange traffic that you're not seeing on the network, but people claim that it's very important for them to do their job. Those sorts of things. So you need to actually realize that going down the road of zero trust is a unified front. Everybody needs to take those steps together.Ryan Johnson: Yeah. Thank you, Scott. Probably the last question here, this is directed to Gerald once again. How does zero trust relate to TIC 3.0 and CDM?Gerald Caron: So, I think the great thing about CDM, for those that have been participating in it, it's such a good foundational things that I think you can build on for zero trust. I think Brandon said it, well, earlier, is like, you're probably already doing some things and taking a good inventory of some of those efforts that you already have going on, and how it fits into the zero trust architecture that... So, there may be some tweaks. TIC, I think, definitely is part of... a contributor to the solution, especially, some of these efforts that allow for the telemetry and the services to do that untethering that I was talking about, and get all that data and make decisions based off that.Definitely. I think the way CDM is taking in and doing like the asset discovery, a lot of the understanding of the mapping, eventually in the subsequent phases later on to do the network access control, so you can quarantine or trigger an action on a device. There's a lot of good things that I think they provide some good building blocks that will get you a part of your zero trust solution. Not the totality. Of course, we've already talked about that, but I think there's some good foundational pieces that they've put in place that contribute to the overall zero trust architecture.Scott Rose: Yeah. To follow up on that, if you go through the part of the NIST 800-207, we have a coauthor from DHS, and he's the head of the TIC program. We made sure that, at least, the text that we had in those sections where we talk about CDM and TIC, we had a lot of input and overview from DHS there. So, he made sure that the wordings and both of the tone and both matchly don't contradict. So yeah, we made sure that we were expressing the fact that these programs are interlaced. Thanks for listening. If you would like more information on how Carahsoft or F5 can assist your federal agency, please visit www.carahsoft.com or email us at f5-sales@carahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening, and have a great day. 

In this episode of Vanguard Radio, hear about the Comply-to-Connect program that is currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) and how it compares to what Canada's DND is using. J. Richard Jones talks with Colonel Dean G Hullings, who retired from the United States Air Force after over two decades of service and now works as a Global Defense Solutions Strategist for Forescout Technologies, about this program. Dean leverages his extensive knowledge and 30 years of experience in information technology and in the U.S. Air Force to guide and grow Forescout's engagements within the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Dean's unique insights and strategic counsel enable Forescout's defense team to successfully navigate key decision chains inside the DOD, resulting in customer success through enterprise deployments. He also assists Forescout's global public sector engagement efforts in part by educating customers on best practices gleaned through Forescout's extensive participation in U.S. government programs. Prior to joining Forescout, Dean served 26 years in the U.S. Air Force as a communications and cyber officer, serving in various leadership positions for Air Force and Joint Commands.   Learn about what the Comply-to-Connect program all about, DISA's (Defense Information Systems Agency) main goals in implementing the Comply-to-Connect program, how Comply-to-Connect differs from other DISA and DND-provided enterprise programs, how will Comply-to-Connect make existing tools more effective and support the automation of routine processes, the kind of training opportunities that will be provided for this program, especially during the current environment due to COVID-19 and why is now the right time for DND to take on such a large project and how will this benefit the Canadian Armed Forces and Canada.  

It’s been a long time coming, but this week, the Defense Department started migrating its IT users to a multibillion dollar commercial cloud computing contract. No, we’re not talking about JEDI. This cloud is called Defense Enterprise Office Solutions, the software-as-a-service platform that’ll eventually deliver email and collaboration services to the entire department. Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu has the latest.

This episode we talk to our teammates at the Defense Information Systems Agency about their internship program and how they've had to adapt during the Covid response. Followed by a conversation our Command Information Chief had with a health and wellness expert about the importance of taking care of yourself.

The Defense Information Systems Agency moved its cloud based internet isolation program into production after testing it out for the last year under a $199 million Other Transaction Agreement. Steve Wallace, the systems innovation scientist at the Defense Information Systems Agency, said the cloud based internet isolation program could be the game changer many have been waiting for in cybersecurity. Sherri Sokol, the program manager of the CBII program, said the technology demonstrated its value earlier this year when cyber experts warned of a zero day vulnerability in the browser. Hear more on this week's Ask the CIO with Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller.

Updates on milDrive and cloud storage Carissa Landymore, Cloud Storage Program Manager at DISA, discusses the one-stop shop for storage that the Defense Information Systems Agency is creating to expand its storage offerings Making the software acquisition process more agile Jennifer Pahlka, Founder of Code for America, explains the significance of pilot programs that will test out a new color of money the Pentagon can use to buy software New IG memo finds GSA lacks a standard cleaning inspection process Danny Werfel, Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group, discusses a new IG report that finds the Public Buildings Service needs to tell the workforce sooner when it learns about a positive coronavirus case in a building

The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to release a draft solicitation for what it estimates will be an $11.7 billion dollar contract over the next ten years. It’s called Defense Enclave Services, and much like the controversial JEDI contract, DISA plans to use a single-vendor ID/IQ approach. The main purpose is to build a shared I-T network for the DoD agencies and field activities outside the military services – commonly called the Fourth Estate.

The Defense Information Systems Agency inked a $106 million contract last week to create an artificial intelligence joint common foundation. If you’re wondering what that is and what it means for the future of warfare you’re not alone. AI is still an amorphous animal within the Defense Department. This 50-year-old scenario just might be coming closer. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione joins the Federal Drive with what he's learned.

Organizations may be hesitant to share attack vectors, data breaches and other cybersecurity information, but that siloed approach is holding cybersecurity back, says Cody Cornell, co-founder and CEO of Swimlane. On today's episode, Cody discusses the open sharing of security information, how it can transform cybersecurity from a source of consternation into an opportunity and ways to get your company to buy into this new way of thinking.– The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting communities around the world. See what Infosec is doing to help: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/covid-19-response/– View transcripts and additional episodes: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/podcastCody is responsible for the strategic direction of Swimlane and the development of its security automation and orchestration solution. His passion for open exchange of security information and deep vendor integration drives him to pursue opportunities to maximize the value his customers receive from their investments in security operations. In 2011, Cody co-founded Phoenix Data Security Inc., a cybersecurity professional services organization known for their ability to blend strategy and engineering with an organization’s business requirements. After beginning his career in the U.S. Coast Guard, Cody spent 15 years in IT and security, including roles with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, Department of Homeland Security, American Express and IBM Global Business Services.About InfosecAt Infosec, we believe knowledge is the most powerful tool in the fight against cybercrime. We help IT and security professionals advance their careers with a full regimen of certifications and skills development training. We also empower all employees with security awareness and training to stay cybersecure at work and home. Founded by smart people wanting to do good, Infosec educates entire organizations on how to defend themselves from cybercrime. That’s what we do every day — equipping everyone with the latest security skills so the good guys win.

Vice Admiral Nancy Norton, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency is joined by the agency's Chief of Staff, Laura Radney and Cyber Development Director, Dr. Serena Chan to discuss what it means to be a woman in leadership, the challenges they faced and what we can all do to help ensure equal leadership opportunities for women in the workforce.

It's not often that an agency cancels two prominent contracts and then talks about it publicly. That is what the Defense Information Systems Agency did, not as a way to punish or embarrass the contractor, but as a lesson from which others could learn. In his weekly feature, the Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller writes about DISA's decision and the message it's trying to send across the industry. He joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss.

On this episode of the cavnessHR podcast we talk to Derren Burrell – President and Founder of Veteran Ventures Capital https://www.cavnessHR.com jasoncavness@cavnessHR.com @cavnessHR  across social media @jasoncavnessHR across social media Sign up to join the cavnessHR waitlist at https://cavnesshr.co/nrw Derren Burrell, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) is the is the Founder & President of Veteran Ventures Capital, LLC, an investment and consulting firm focused on scaling veteran-owned and led businesses. In this capacity he oversees all aspects of the company operations and fund management. Prior to this he served as the Chief Operating Officer for TAG Resources, LLC, a retirement service company with over $1.5 billion in assets under management.  He is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary, Certified Defense Financial Manager, and Level 3 Certified in the Secretary of Defense Financial Management Program.  Prior to his transition to the private sector in 2015, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Burrell was the Resource Director of the White House Communication Agency. He worked directly with senior White House (WH) staff, Congressional, comptroller, United States Secret Service, Dept of State, and Defense Information Systems Agency staff in all aspects of financial and contract management in support of POTUS. While in this position he was selected for the rank of Colonel but decided to retire from his 21-year military history and transition to the private sector.  Highlights of his military career include being deployed to Iraq as the Deputy Comptroller, United States Forces – Iraq and in Afghanistan as the Resource Director, NATO Air Training Command – Afghanistan. In this joint capacity he led the 34- person J8 directorate (Iraq) and the 4-person J8 office (Afghanistan) in planning, resourcing, and executing $20 billion + in U.S. appropriated funding in support of U.S. operations within the Iraq and Afghanistan Joint Operations Areas.  He was also stationed at the Pentagon as the flying operations analyst for the Air Force, where he was responsible for the largest Operations & Maintenance budget account in the Air Force, over $15 billion. He has been a squadron commander for both finance and wing staff agencies, and was a deployed Comptroller on the front line in Operations SEA SIGNAL, SOUTHERN WATCH, ALLIED FORCE, NEW DAWN, and ENDURING FREEDOM.  He is a graduate of the Citadel and past recipient of several awards including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medals, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Air Force Budget Officer of the Year twice, Air Force Financial Management Officer of the Year, Comptroller of the Year, and USAFE James E. Short Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mentorship and Career Development.  Derren is married to the former Gloria Frey and they have 5 children: Lydia, Luke, David, Rebekah, and Nathanael.  We talk about the following: His company, Veteran Ventures Capital Why it is important to invest in Military Veteran led companies How to do your pitch deck What makes him say yes or no to an opportunity to invest Derren's Social Media  Company website: https://www.veteranventures.us/ Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/veteran-ventures-capital-llc/ Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/VenturesVeteran Company Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veteran_ventures/ Company FB: https://www.facebook.com/veteranventurescapital/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Roger Greenwell, the chief information officer, the authoring official and risk management executive at DISA, said the agency is focused on understanding where the cyber threats are, how does it take that information and make sure they are addressing those key protection priorities.

Picture a juggler spinning plates and that is what the Defense Information Systems Agency's fiscal 2020 will look like. And DISA's plates are saucers for a new pilot project in blockchain technology. In his weekly feature, the Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller writes about how DISA will keep all those projects going without breaking too much china. He joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss.

A lot of agencies and vendors talk about the move to a zero trust architecture, but few are actually putting the pieces in place to improve their cybersecurity. The Defense Information Systems Agency may be one of the few exceptions. Jason Martin, the vice director of the Development and Business Center at DISA, said the agency is working with the U.S. Cyber Command to launch a zero trust pilot. Jason Miller had more details on this week's Ask the CIO.

Our guest today is Cody Cornell. He’s CEO of Swimlane, a SOAR platform provider. Cody began his career in the U.S. Coast Guard and has spent 15 years in IT and security, including roles with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), American Express, and IBM Global Business Services. We’ll learn about his career path from sailor to CEO, he’ll share his insider perspective on SOAR platforms and how organizations are using them, and we’ll learn about how he thinks organizations are best implementing threat intelligence to protect not just themselves, but the community as a whole.

Our guest today is Cody Cornell. He's CEO of Swimlane, a SOAR platform provider. Cody began his career in the U.S. Coast Guard and has spent 15 years in IT and security, including roles with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), American Express, and IBM Global Business Services. We'll learn about his career path from sailor to CEO, he'll share his insider perspective on SOAR platforms and how organizations are using them, and we'll learn about how he thinks organizations are best implementing threat intelligence to protect not just themselves, but the community as a whole.

The Defense Department's biggest labor union has lodged a formal complaint against the Pentagon, accusing DoD officials of unfair labor practices. The issue is an upcoming plan to consolidate many of DoD's IT networks. As part of the transition, more than 1,000 employees who work for a dozen Defense agencies are set to become employees of the Defense Information Systems Agency. But the American Federation of Government Employees said its members haven't been consulted about the changes. Victor Matos is the president of AFGE Local 2846, and represents employees at the Defense Contract Management Agency. He talked with Federal News Network's Jared Serbu about what employees have been told so far, on which can be heard on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Charles Nwatu began his security career when he was recruited by the NSA and worked for several years in the federal government at DISA, the Defense Information Systems Agency. He then moved west to focus on technology and start-ups. Charles has held security leadership roles at LinkedIn, Twilio, and Stitchfix.

As part of the Defense Department's consolidation of the organizations known as the Fourth Estate, the Defense Information System Agency and the DoD chief information officer's office conducted a survey of sorts. They looked at all the existing applications to decide what stays, what goes and where the surviving apps need to be hosted. John Hale is the chief of cloud services at the Defense Information Systems Agency. He told Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller about what they found in the application rationalization analysis on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Dave Mihelcic, former CTO of the Defense Information Systems Agency and consultant at DMMI, details issues with the Joint Regional Security Stacks program and ways to fix them. Gary Wall, former Networx program manager at the Department of Health and Human Services and CEO of the Coastal Communications Consulting Group, discusses how the government shutdown affected GSA’s new telecommunications contract, and why it could be made worse by other problems down the line. LaVerne Council, national managing principal of enterprise tech strategy & innovation at Grant Thornton, discusses changes to the IT oversight structure in Congress and why it’s important for legislators to keep an eye on tech developments.

Bill Valdez, president of the Senior Executives Association, and Terry Gerton, president & CEO of the National Academy of Public Administration, discuss what the shutdown means for morale and other workforce issues across the federal government Chris Cummiskey, former acting Homeland Security undersecretary and CEO of Cummiskey Strategic Solutions, outlines why DHS is holding contract deadlines for the time being, and why it’s important to have “predictability.” Bobbie Stempfley, former chief information officer of the Defense Information Systems Agency and managing director of the CERT division at the Software Engineering Institute, discusses how artificial intelligence and automation can improve government cybersecurity.

The Defense Information Systems Agency thought it had all the bases covered for its Systems Engineering, Technology and Innovation contract. Best value, multiple awards, unrestricted and small business are all there. But it lost four protests. For the why, procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo of Petrillo and Powell joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

The Defense Information Systems Agency may be best known for the more than 5 billion dollars in contracting support it provides the military services and agencies each year. But with the move of the Joint Force Headquarters, DoD Information Network back to DISA earlier this year, the agency is playing a bigger role in securing the Pentagon's networks and data. Federal News Network's Jason Miller joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss the 3 biggest plans DISA is developing for fiscal 2019.

It's not enough for the Defense Department to have big challenges to its JEDI cloud procurement. The Defense Information Systems Agency was supposed to send a third and final request for proposal on its $9 billion Defense Enterprise Office System contract, also a cloud deal, back in June. Suddenly, four months later, there's a whole new request for information. Federal News Network's David Thornton joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for more discussion.

For 120,000 users of the Defense Information Systems Agency's unclassified mobile device service, email is about to get a lot easier and more personal. DISA plans to let uniformed and civilian employees using the Defense Mobility Unclassified Capability access their native or non-DISA enterprise email addresses from their mobile phones. This means DISA is connecting to Army.mil or Navy.mil email accounts and providing full services. Jake Marcellus, DISA's mobility portfolio manager, tells Executive Editor Jason Miller on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about this and several other changes on tap from DISA to improve mobile computing.

The IT crew at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts just switched cloud providers from the Defense Information Systems Agency to Amazon Web Services. While airmen might not see any immediate impact, the Air Force said they will soon see more reliable apps and better service. Federal News Radio's Scott Maucione spoke with Bob Oshel, systems architect at Isobar, a company that helped the Air Force with the conversion process, and with Kerry Coburn, program manager for common computing environment acquisitions at Hanscom, on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

On Monday, the Defense Department made a $50 million dollar award to build a key part of the new National Background Investigation System. This new IT will eventually replace the aging systems the Office of Personnel Management uses to process the government's security clearance investigations. But the Defense Information Systems Agency decided to award the project as an "Other Transaction Agreement." As a result, we don't know much about what the project involves. It's also not exactly clear why DISA went the OTA route in the first place instead of open competition. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu and Scott Maucione joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to talk about the latest award, and DoD's expanding use of OTAs.

The Pentagon's upcoming contract for its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure – or JEDI – is getting a lot of attention. It could be the biggest IT procurement in DoD's history. But the Pentagon says JEDI won't be the only game in town when it comes to cloud. In a new memo, DoD ordered Defense agencies to start moving their applications out of more than 100 legacy data centers, and into the Defense Information Systems Agency's new milCloud 2.0. Caroline Bean, DISA's program manager for milCloud, tells Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about where the program stands.

Guest: Roberta Stempfley The EastWest Institute's cyberspace program chief Bruce McConnell speaks with Roberta Stempfley, Director of CERT Division at Carnegie Mellon University, on how to develop cyber secure software as many aspects in everyday life increasingly depend on IT products and services. The two also delved into the concept of "cybersecurity poverty line." Stempfley previously served as acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary, Office of Cyber Security and Communications, at the Department of Homeland Security. She also worked in the Department of Defense as CIO of the Defense Information Systems Agency and as chief of the DoD Computer Emergency Response Team, which she established.

Things keep changing at the Defense Department, both big and small. Industry has sat up and taken notice of a proposal from Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Armed Services committee , to eliminate the Defense Information Systems Agency and move it into the Cyber Command. Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss how product contractors are reacting.

The House Armed Services Subcommittees are making their recommendations for the 2019 defense authorization bill. In them are more changes to the Defense Information Systems Agency and some personnel issues that may affect listeners. Federal News Radio's Scott Maucione joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to break it down.

Could the Defense Department be headed for a world without the Defense Information Systems Agency? House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry is suggesting eliminating seven defense agencies and slashing the budgets of 21 others. It is all part of a potential crackdown on what the military calls the Fourth Estate. But just a few days after Thornberry floated the bill it is already getting pushback from lawmakers, unions and former DoD officials. Federal News Radio's Scott Maucione joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to explain.

Alfred Rivera, who retired after serving more than 20 years at the Defense Information Systems Agency, said DoD can’t underestimate the costs and time it takes to migrate to a single cloud foundation.

Read the transcript of this podcast and dozens of other podcasts with sales leaders on the Sales Game Changers Podcast. Henry Sienkiewicz is an author and more recently became the Chief Revenue and Innovation Officer for Secure Channels, an authentication and encryption company based in Orange County, California with an office in Virginia and global development teams. His most recent book, The Art of Cyber Conflict, is an unclassified doctrinal piece designed to help organizations think about the cyber problem. However, most people in the technology industry know him as either the Chief Information Officer and Cyber guy at the Defense Information Systems Agency or as a former Corporate Officer at the Airline Tariff Publishing Company. Henry's career has been highlighted by his ability to gracefully introduce disruptive technologies into complex organizations.

Two years after senior Defense leaders first ordered the consolidation of all IT and cyber defense services in and around the Pentagon, the organization that came to be known as the Joint Service Provider declared full operational capability this week and became part of the Defense Information Systems Agency.Maj. Gen. Brian Dravis, JSP's director, talks with Jared Serbu about what's been accomplished in the two years since JSP's standup and what's ahead.

The Navy says it wants to be a big customer for the Defense Information Systems Agency's cloud-based email and unified communications service. There's just one problem: despite two years of planning, the service doesn't exist yet, so Navy brass are hesitant to drop anchor into nowhwere. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu has details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

In 2012, Congress created a new government agency called FirstNet and tasked it with building a high-speed wireless network that would allow all first responders in the United States to communicate with each other daily and in times of emergencies. In July, FirstNet awarded AT&T with a 25 year contract to do the actual work. In this episode, hear highlights from a recent hearing about this new network as we examine the wisdom of contracting such an important part of our public safety infrastructure to the private sector. Please visit Podchaser.com to nominate your favorite Congressional Dish episode. Password: Patreon Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Additional Reading Article: PayPal, GoFundMe, And Patreon Banned A Bunch Of People Associated With The Alt-Right. Here's Why. by Blake Montgomery, Buzzfeed News, August 2, 2017. Article: U.S. Virgin Islands becomes first territory to 'opt-in' to FirstNet by Donny Jackson, Urgent Communications, August 1, 2017. Article: New Mexico becomes eighth state to 'opt in' to FirstNet by Donny Jackson, Urgent Communications, August 1, 2017. Article: FirstNet Becoming a Reality as the Number of States Opting in Grows to Seven by Adam Stone, GovTech, July 27, 2017. Interview: Executive Spotlight: Interview with Mike Leff, VP for Strategy and Operations for AT&T Global Public Sector by Andy Reed, Executive Biz, July 27, 2017. Article: AT&T in Early Talks With U.S. Officials for Time Warner Approval by David McLaughlin, Gerry Smith and Scott Moritz, Bloomberg, July 24, 2017. Article: FirstNet Gets its Teeth: Implications for Turf, Tech, and Tower Vendors by Daniel Vitulich, Wireless Week, July 21, 2017. Article: National Cell Network For First Responders Could Mean Better Coverage For Vermonters by Amy Kolb Noyes, VPR, July 14, 2017. Article: Some may be kept in the dark on future of public safety telecom by Dave Gram, VTDigger, July 9, 2017. Article: States Deserve A Complete Picture In Evaluating FirstNet/AT&T Coverage Plans by Al Catalano, Keller and Heckman LLP, Lexology, June 29, 2017. Article: Leidos and AT&T to Implement Software Defined Networking for the Defense Information Systems Agency by Leidos, PR Newswire, June 26, 2017. Article: State, Territory Plans and Next Step in FirstNet Build-Out Arrive Ahead of Schedule by Theo Douglas, GovTech, June 19, 2017. Report: FirstNet Has Made Progress Establishing the Network, but Should Address Stakeholder Concerns and Workforce Planning, U.S. Government Accountability Office, June 2017. Article: AT&T and Maxwell Air Force Base Pilot IoT Connected "Smart Base", AT&T Newsroom, April 4, 2017. Article: FirstNet Taps Telecom Giant AT&T for First Responder Network Buildout by News Staff, GovTech, March 30, 2017. Article: Incident Management Teams and FirstNet: A Perspective on the Future by Lesia Dickson, GovTech, January 26, 2017. Article: AT&T Powers NASA's Deep Space Network, AT&T Newsroom, December 14, 2016. Article: Wilbur Ross: From 'king of bankruptcy' to face of American business by Paul Davidson, USA Today, November 30, 2016. Article: AT&T and NASA Collaborate on Drone Traffic Management System, AT&T Newsroom, November 10, 2016. Article: AT&T Agrees to Buy Time Warner for $85.4 Billion by Michael J. de la Merced, The New York Times, October 22, 2016. Article: FirstNet Makes Progress, But Cost and Quality Concerns Remain by Colin Wood, GovTech, May 18, 2016. Website: AT&T's History of Invention and Breakups, The New York Times, February 13, 2016. Article: AT&T Completes Acquisition of DIRECTV, AT&T Newsroom, July 24, 2015. Article: FirstNet: Is Opting Out an Option? by Adam Stone, GovTech, November 17, 2014. Article: FirstNet Hires Friends, Skirts Competitive Bidding by Greg Gordon, McClatchy News Service, GovTech, September 26, 2014. Article: Millions in federal emergency communications funding lost, diverted by Greg Gordon, McClatchy DC Bureau, July 14, 2014. Article: How AT&T got busted up and pieced back together by Jose Pagliery, CNN, May 20, 2014. Article: FirstNet Explained by Tod Newcombie, GovTech, April 17, 2014. Article: FirstNet: Anwsers to Key Questions by David Raths, GovTech, October 10, 2012. Article: FirstNet Board Filled by Public Safety Officials, Telecom Execs by Sarah Rich, GovTech, August 20, 2012. Article: Communications Giant: The Deal; With Cable Deal, AT&T Makes Move to Regain Empire by Seth Schiesel, The New York Times, June 25, 1998. Article: Communications Bill Signed, And the Battles Begin Anew by Edmund Andrews, The New York Times, February 9, 1996. Article: Company News; AT&T Completes Deal To Buy NcCaw Cellular by Edmund Andrews, The New York Times, September 20, 1994. Article: AT&T Buying Computer Maker In Stock Deal Worth $7.4 Billion by Eben Shapiro, The New York Times, May 7, 1991. Article: U.S. Settles Phone Suit, Drops I.B.M. Case; AT&T to Split Up, Transforming Industry by Ernest Holsendolph, The New York Times, January 9, 1982. Article: No. 1 U.S. Utility Is Investor Favorite by Gene Smith, The New York Times, November 21, 1974. References Website: FirstNet FirstNet Board Members Website: National Telecommunications & Information Administration Offices GovTrack: H.R. 3630 (112th): Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 House Vote Senate Vote Document: FirstNet Partnership Factsheet Infoplease: Top 50 Cities in the U.S. by Population and Rank YouTube: Patreon CEO on Content Policy, Lauren Southern, and IGD YouTube: Lauren Southern: Patreon Banned My Account?? Visual References Image Source Image Source Image Source Sound Clip Sources Hearing: National Public Safety Network; Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Communications; July 20, 2017. Witnesses: Curtis Brown: Virginia Deputy Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security Dr. Damon Darsey: University of Mississippi Medical Center Professor Mark Goldstein: GAO Physical Infrastructure Issues Director Chris Sambar: AT&T FirstNet, Senior Vice President Michael Poth: FirstNet CEO Timestamps & Transcripts 1:10 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): In 2012 Congress created the First Responder Network Authority to lead the development of a nationwide interoperable public-safety broadband network in the United States. Following the communication’s failures that plagued recovery efforts during 9/11 and other national emergencies, including Hurricane Katrina, there was and still is a clear need for a reliable communications network to support the essential work of our public-safety officials. Such a network would improve coordination among first responders across multiple jurisdictions and enhance the ability of first responders to provide lifesaving emergency services quickly. 6:37 Sen. Brian Schatz (HI): With FirstNet, firefighters will be able to download the blueprint of a burning building before they enter; a police officer arriving at a scene can run a background check or get pictures of a suspect by accessing a federal law enforcement database; most importantly, emergency personnel will not be competing with commercial users for bandwidth. They will have priority on this network, which will be built and hardened to public-safety specifications. It will have rugged eyes and competitive devices and specify public-safety applications. 9:40 Curtis Brown: Last week the governor was proud to announce that Virginia was the first state in the nation to opt in to FirstNet. Virginia opted in to provide current AT&T public-safety subscribers with the benefit of priority services now at no cost to the Commonwealth, as well as the green light to build out of Virginia’s portion of the national public-safety broadband network. We believe that decision to opt in will promote competition within the public-safety communications marketplace, that will reduce costs and drive innovation across all carriers. Opting out was _____(00:31-verily) considered, but the unknown cost and risk associated with deploying and operating a network was not feasible. 19:45 Mark Goldstein: In March 2017 FirstNet awarded a 25-year contract to AT&T to build, operate, and maintain the network. FirstNet’s oversight of AT&T’s performance is very important, given the scope of the network and the duration of the contract. Among GAO’s findings in the report are the following: first, FirstNet has conducted key efforts to establish the network, namely releasing the requests for proposal for the network and awarding the network contract to AT&T. As the contractor, AT&T will be responsible for the overall design, development, production, operation, and evolution of the network. 24:35 Chris Sambar: The AT&T team that I lead is dedicated exclusively to FirstNet. I expect this group to grow to several-hundred employees by this year’s end as we hire people across the country with a broad range of skill sets to help us ramp up our network build out. Overall, AT&T expects to spend $40 billion over the lifetime of this contract and to build an operating unique, nationwide, interoperable, IP-based, high-speed mobile network, encrypted at its core, that will provide first responders priority, primary users with preemption and all other users during times of emergency and network congestion. The First Responder Network will be connected to and leverage off AT&T’s world-class telecommunications platform, valued at nearly $180 billion, including a wireless network that reaches 99.6% of the U.S. population. In addition, AT&T will support first responders 24 by 7 by 365 with a dedicated security-operation center and help desk. We will provide first responders with a highly secure application ecosystem as well as a highly competitive flexible pricing on equipment and services that they select for their unique needs. One of the most important resources that AT&T brings to bear on the new First Responder Network is our best-in-class national disaster-recovery team. We have spent more than a 130,000 working hours on field exercises and disaster-recovery deployments over the last two decades. This team combines network infrastructure, support trailers, recovery engineering-software applications, and boots on the ground filled by full-time and volunteer AT&T disaster-response team members. In order to support the First Responder Network, AT&T will increase its disaster-recovery fleet by adding 72 new custom-designed vehicles, just for the FirstNet mission. 26:55 Chris Sambar: Possibilities include near real-time information on traffic conditions, which can help determine the best route to an emergency for a first responder; wearable sensors and cameras for police and firefighters to help give them better situational awareness and camera-equipped drones and robots that will be able to deliver real-time imagery. Our FirstNet efforts are expected to create 10,000 U.S. jobs over the next two years as well as significant public-private infrastructure investment. 30:25 Michael Poth: We’ve created and delivered state plans on June 19 to 50 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia three months ahead of schedule, and as mentioned, the five governors from five great states have already opted in. None of this could be possible, though, without the public-private framework that Congress established for the FirstNet network, by leveraging private-sector resources, infrastructure, cost savings, public-private partner synergies to deploy, operate, and maintain the system. FirstNet can be now deployed quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively. 36:10 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Dr. Darsey mentioned that the Mississsippi wireless communications commission has expressed concerns about FirstNet’s commitment to hardening the network. You mentioned this in your testimony, the need for FirstNet infrastructure to be hardened. Can you discuss why that’s important, and is it more important in the rural areas, and also, in your experience, how do broadband needs differ between urban and rural communities with respect to providing emergency medical services? Dr. Damon Darsey: Sure. Thanks for the question. I’ll give you an example. Couple years ago we had a tornado, as you well remember, that took out a hospital in the northeast part of our state. And the medical center has got a pretty robust program to respond to that, and we did. The challenge in that was it took out a couple of commercial towers, but it did not, after a fairly close hit, take out one of our hardened public-safety communication towers. What that did for us is we lost all ability to communicate data out of that area, which was vital in moving and evacuating the hospital, nursing home, and recovering the people that were there. That’s the piece that is the concern that I think we share, all of us here, of how do we make that as hardened as possible. In terms of rural and urban, from a medical perspective we can do a lot more, as our team is showing in Mississippi and other states, if we know about the patient well before they get close to a hospital. If we can reach out and touch the stroke patient in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, we can dramatically increase their chances of survival and meaningful use after arrival to the hospital. Currently, we’re doing that over radio, and it’s working really well, but now imagine that in the rural areas. In urban areas, it’s vital in the medical world, but here we’re five minutes from multiple hospitals. Now take that as a 45 or 50 minutes away, and what we can do with broadband data in that time is truly life saving and saving of healthcare dollars. There’s a nexus here that FirstNet can combine both of those. 41:00 Michael Poth: Numerous bids were in, and they were analyzed with a great level of detail, and through that process that the Department of Interior assisted us with as the acquisition experts, AT&T came out as the prevailing solution and prevailing company provider. Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): The question is why. Poth: Well, the value that they’re bringing with their existing infrastructure, their ability and size, their financial sustainability to be able to take on something of this nature, and their lowest-risk approach to implementing this in the shortest time was truly some of the value propositions that made them more competitive than some of the other bids that were analyzed. 42:13 Chris Sambar: The initial RFP that FirstNet released contemplated building out a public-safety broadband network using just band class 14, and we responded accordingly. But through discussions, we decided we would extend it beyond just the band class 14, which is the spectrum that was allocated for first responders in 2012. We said we would open up all of the spectrum bands within AT&T. So, essentially, what that means is the day that a state opts in, they have immediate access to AT&T’s entire network, all spectrum bands, and they will see the benefits of FirstNet on all spectrum bands, all wireless towers, from AT&T that are LTE enabled. So I think that’s a tremendous benefit that FirstNet was not expecting when they contemplated the original RFP. But when we brought that, I think they were very pleased with that, and that helped us. Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): So, you’re going to have a level playing field for all device manufacturers. Sambar: Absolutely, sir. 43:15 Sen. Bill Nelson (FL): There must have been some folks in Virginia that suggested that you opt out of the network and chart your own path. Tell me the benefits to Virginia’s first responders of the governor’s decision to opt in. Curtis Brown: Thank you, Senator. The decision to opt in was really based on looking at the benefits that comes with opt in, the immediate priority and preemption services that would come for those who are subscribers to the network. And a major thing, Senator, is to the fact that it comes at no cost to the Commonwealth. We have been disproportionately impacted by sequestration and other aspects—the governor had to close a 300-million-dollar budget deficit—and so looking at the cost it would take to build a network and sustain it, it just was not feasible. 47:45 Chris Sambar: We initially envisioned, when we launched the State Plan portal on June 19, that we would have roughly 50 user IDs and passwords per state. That would be 50 individuals who would access the portal. We immediately got feedback that states wanted more, and we are offering more. So, we have a state right now, as a matter of fact, 227 login and user IDs have been issued. So, it shouldn’t be an issue for a state if they have additional people. The only requirements we have, Senator, is that, as Mr. Poth said, that it’s an official email address, somebody in the state who works for the state— Unknown Senator: Right. Sambar: —or an authorized consultant. Either of those is fine. We just don’t want, like, a @gmail, @hotmail, someone that we don’t know who they are. Unknown Senator: Right, okay. 53:14 Michael Poth: How do the states hold us accountable? As FirstNet shifts gears from developing a proposal and making an award, for the next 25 years we are going to be in a position to work with the states, continuous and public safety in all of those states, to make sure that all of their expectations, both from the State Plans and in the future, are being met and translated. If appropriate, we back into contractual actionable items. Or if AT&T, for example, is not meeting the requirements or the expectations, FirstNet will, on behalf of public safety and those states, enforce the terms of the contract. 54:55 Michael Poth: Canada is using the same exact spectrum that we’ll be utilizing with AT&T, so there’s a lot of synergies. We’ve spent a great deal of time coordinating and comparing notes with Canada and the public-safety entities in that country as to what we’re doing so that there is the inoperability between the countries will also be realized. 1:08:50 Chris Sambar: So we have had a number of states as well as federal agencies we’ve been in communication with, and some of the states have been very direct that they’re interested us putting our LTE equipment on state-, city-, municipal-owned assets. That would give them the benefit of revenue from AT&T through a lease agreement. It would also give us a benefit of being able to build out the network faster. 1:24:20 Michael Poth: AT&T’s already been doing this, as mentioned, for years with their fleet of 700 deployables. Now with the 72 dedicated, which are much smaller units which is going to give us the ability to maybe get those into areas that are a little tougher to get to, we’re very excited about that. That is an absolute addition to the solution that we’re going to be able to bring to public safety quickly. 1:25:50 Chris Sambar: So, we will be building out band class 14 over the coming five years across a significant portion of our network. In the meantime, before band class 14 is built out, we will be using our commercial network. There are requirements in the contract with FirstNet over how quickly we need to build out band class 14, and we have to hit those milestones in order to receive the payments due to us from FirstNet. If we don’t hit those milestones, we don’t receive the payments, so we will be aggressively building out band class 14 for first responders. Again, in the meantime, they will have access to all of AT&T’s bands. So to say it simply, if you are a first responder, Senator, you will not know whether you’re on band class 14 or any other AT&T band, but you will have the exact same experience regardless of what band you are on on AT&T network. Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Your position isn’t the service that’s provided, and the consumer and the public-safety user, to them it will be immaterial where it’s coming from. Sambar: The way I like to say— Exactly. The way I say it is this: public safety has been told for many years that the magic of FirstNet happens on band class 14, and we’ve changed that. That’s not correct anymore. The magic happens on the AT&T network period, and it doesn’t matter where you are, you’re going to have the exact same experience. So we’ve extended it far beyond the band class 14 to our entire network. Wicker: Will you build out the class 14 spectrum only where it is economically viable, or will you build it out where there is written requirement in the arrangement between you and FirstNet? Sambar: We are building band class 14 where we need the capacity in our network. So in order to provide priority and preemptive services to first responders and have enough capacity for everyone that’s on the network, including the first responders, there are places where we will need additional capacity; that’s where we’re building— Wicker: And you will determine that need. Sambar: AT&T, based on capacity triggers—obviously, we’ve been doing this for a long time—based on capacity triggers that we see in the network, we build out band class 14 as additional capacity on individual—and this is done on a tower-by-tower basis. 1:28:00 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): Are you able to say what approximate percentage of the lower 48 landmass will be covered by band class 14 build out? Chris Sambar: Unfortunately, I am not, Senator. That’s proprietary between FirstNet and AT&T. I would say, again, it’s a significant portion, though. Wicker: Can you be more specific than “significant”? Sambar: That would be proprietary, Senator. I apologize. Wicker: And what makes it proprietary? Sambar: The specific details of the contract between FirstNet and AT&T. There’s a number of specific details that are proprietary, Senator. Wicker: That is proprietary and not available to the public— Sambar: That’s correct, Senator. Wicker: —or to the Congress. Sambar: That’s correct, Senator. 1:29:35 Sen. Roger Wicker: Then in terms of this coverage, which you said really shouldn’t matter what band it’s coming over— Chris Sambar: Mm-hmm. Wicker: —are you able to say what percentage of the lower 48 landmass will be covered in one way or the other? Sambar: One way or the other? Wicker: Yes. Apart, of course, from the deployables. Sambar: So, 99.6% of the U.S. population will be covered by AT&T’s network. 1:39:05 Chris Sambar: The vast major—as we understand it, based on our research and FirstNet’s research—the vast majority of firefighters, for example, are not issued devices for their daily use at work, especially volunteer firefighters. Greater than 70% of police officers are in the same situation: they are not provided a device. They’re using their personal devices. We are going to make available the FirstNet network to all of those first responders, regardless of whether you’re a volunteer, whether your agency provides you a device, or whether you bring your own personal device. They will have access to the FirstNet network. Once we can verify their credentials and ensure that we have the right people on the network, they will have access to all of those features and benefits, and it will come at a significantly lower price than they’re paying today for their personal or commercial service. So it’s a tremendous benefit to all first responders. 1:39:55 Sen. Roger Wicker (MS): On user fees, will they cost the same for all network users, or will they vary by regions, public-safety agencies, or states? Chris Sambar: It’s difficult to answer because there are different use cases, so it depends. If you’re a large department and you want unlimited data and you have a number of applications that you want preinstalled on the device and you have mobile-device management software, that would be one use case. There may be a rural department that wants to connect body cameras and dashboard video camera from a police department. It will depend on the use case. Wicker: So it’s use case and not regions and states. Sambar: That’s correct, sir. Wicker: That would be the variable. Sambar: That’s correct. Hearing: Public Safety Communications; House Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, September 29, 2005. Witnesses: David Boyd: Homeland Security Dept SAFECOM Program Director Timothy Roemer: Member of the 9/11 Commission, Director of the Center for National Policy Art Botterell: Emergency Information Consultant Timestamps & Transcripts 30:44 David Boyd: Interoperability’s not a new issue. It was a problem in Washington, D.C. when the Air Florida flight crashed into the Potomac in 1982, in New York City when the Twin Towers were first attacked in 1993, in 1995 when the Murrah Building was destroyed in Oklahoma City, and in 1999 at Columbine. Too many public-safety personnel cannot communicate by radio, because their equipment is still incompatible, or the frequencies they are assigned to are different and they haven’t got bridging technologies available. They operate on 10 different frequency bands, and they run communication systems that are often proprietary and too often 30 or more years old. Over 90% of the nation’s public-safety wireless infrastructure is financed, owned, operated, and maintained by the more than 60,000 individual local jurisdictions—police, fire, and emergency services—that serve the public. 1:43:00 Timothy Roemer: Let me give you a couple examples of what the 9/11 Commission found as to some of these problems. We found all kinds of compelling instances of bravery and courage, people going into burning buildings and rescuing people. They might have rescued more. We might have saved more of the fire department chiefs, officers, police officers, emergency personnel, if they would have had public-radio spectrum to better communicate. At 9:59 in the morning on 9/11 four years ago, a general evacuation order was given to firefighters in the North Tower. The South Tower had collapsed. A place that held up to 25,000 people had been diminished to cement, steel, and ash. The people, then, in the North Tower, many of the chiefs in the lobby, didn’t even know that the other tower had collapsed, or else they might have been able to get more people out more quickly. We had comments from people saying such things as, we didn’t know it had collapsed. Somebody actually said, Mr. Chairman, that people watching TV had more information than we did in the lobby on 9/11 in the North Tower. People on TV in Florida or California knew more than our first responders on site in New York City. 1:45:10 Timothy Roemer: Mr. Chairman, then we had a disaster happen in the southern part of our country in New Orleans where we had other communication problems. In New Orleans, there’re three neighboring parishes were using different equipment on different frequencies. They couldn’t communicate. We had National Guard in Mississippi communicating by human courier, not by radio frequencies; and we had helicopters up in the air looking at our own citizens on the roofs of their homes in New Orleans, screaming and yelling for help, but they couldn’t talk in the helicopters with the boats in the water to try to find out who was rescued, who wasn’t, and who needed help. 1:55:45 Art Botterell: Third, we can no longer afford to rely on vendor-driven design of our emergency-communications infrastructure. Businesses are responsible for maximizing shareholder value, not for protecting the public welfare. We need independent sources of information and planning for our future emergency infrastructure lest we continue to get updated versions of the same old thing. Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio) Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations

In this podcast, watch Larry Allen, CEO of Allen Federal Business Partners and Comstor’s principal Federal Consultant reviews Business Opportunities with the Defense Information Systems Agency(DISA).Larry will cover, What is DISA, DISA customers and leaders, priorities and IT budget and DISA contract vehicles.For more information on this Federal podcast series contact the Comstor Federal Team at federalsales@comstor.com or 800.955.9590

"Security professionals see the compromise of networked systems on a day to day basis. It's something they've come to expect. The blatant exploitation of operating systems, applications, and configurations is a common event and is taken into account by most security engineers. But a different type of security compromise threatens to crumble the underlying security of the modern organization. There are forms of communication that transfer sensitive data outside of organizations every day. Covert channels are used to move proprietary information in and out of commercial, private, and government entities on a daily basis. These covert channels include things such as Steganography, Covert network channels, Data File Header and Footer Appending, and Alternate Data Streams. Media to be covered include images, audio files, TCP covert channels, Word substitution mechanisms, the Windows file system and others. This presentation will show the attendees common means of covert communication by hiding information through multiple means. We'll also discuss the future of Covert Channels and how hidden information is becoming more and more difficult to detect. Detection of these forms of communication is trailing well behind the technology creating them, this presentation will discuss some of the newest concepts in utilizing Covert Channels and Steganography. Russ Rogers is the CEO of Security Horizon, a Colorado Springs based information security professional services firm and is a technology veteran with over 13 years of technology and information security experience. He has served in multiple technical and management information security positions that include Manager of Professional Services, Manager Security Support, Senior Security Consultant and Unix Systems Administrator. Mr. Rogers is a United States Air Force Veteran and has supported the National Security Agency and the Defense Information Systems Agency in both a military and contractor role. Russ is also an Arabic Linguist. He is a certified instructor for the National Security Agency's INFOSEC Assessment Methodology (IAM) and INFOSEC Evaluation Methodology (IEM) courses. He holds his M.S. degree from the University of Maryland is also a Co-Founder of the Security Tribe (securitytribe.com), a security think tank and research organization."