FCW Insider: Aug. 8

The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration are teaming up on a new review board to supervise agency procurement of Technology Business Management tools and services and make recommendations about acquisition and deployment strategies. At stake is how an estimated $90 million in annual federal IT spending is measured and managed. Adam Mazmanian has more.

The newly named Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which is absorbing National Background Investigations Bureau expects to combine contracting offices and staff, while shrinking small business goals. Lauren C. Williams reports.

A new draft rule implements a measure in the 2019 defense authorization bill to prevent agencies from purchasing telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from five companies, including Huawei and ZTE. Derek B. Johnson explains.

Quick Hits

*** The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will cost $44 million to implement a bug bounty program at the Department of Homeland Security as called for under the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act that passed the House Homeland Security Committee in April. CBO used bug bounty payments under a Government Services Administration program -- ranging from $150 to $5,000 -- as a model. DHS would be able to implement a program by 2021, CBO estimates, and payments to cybersecurity researchers would total $11 million annually through 2024.

*** The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded HGSNet a $22 million, year-long contract to help with the development, deployment and sustainment services for the National Background Investigations System. The award was made Aug. 2 and the contract runs through Aug. 4, 2020. The agency is looking to build a prototype for a web-based software development environment.

Additionally, DISA plans to use its "other transaction" spending authority to develop and sustain secure mobile applications. Initially, DISA is looking for white papers from vendors that can provide technical objectives, including clearly defined prototype solutions, data rights assertions, and schedule and deliverables. At least one prototype OTA award will follow from the solicitation.

*** The National Archive and Records Administration is seeking a vendor to harvest content from congressional websites and social media for archival purposes according to a solicitation posted on FedBizOpps on Aug. 2. Part of the challenge is to capture all the archival inputs from a variety of sources to give a web page -- with embedded video, social media, documents, etc. -- the same look and functionality as when it was live.