FCW Insider: Nov. 6

The General Services Administration named 75 vendors to the governmentwide Second Generation Information Technology blanket purchase agreement, with a ceiling value of $5.5 billion. The contract vehicle is designed to help federal agencies buy hardware and reduce administrative costs and overhead and is a replacement for the Air Force's NETCENTS-2 contract. Mark Rockwell has more.

Cybersecurity firm CyberReason hosted a tabletop election security exercise to see if a fictional threat group dubbed K-OS could defeat federal and law enforcement officials and disrupt a scheduled vote and undermine voter confidence. Derek B. Johnson reports.

After Microsoft's win in the Defense Department's $10 billion cloud contract, Oracle is still looking for a federal court to force the contract to be rebid. Adam Mazmanian has the latest from the long-running JEDI lawsuit.

Federal agencies and the White House are getting into the weeds of how to put the OPEN Government Data Act into effect almost a year after its passage. Lia Russell takes a look at the push toward evidence-based policymaking and open data.

Quick Hits

*** On Election Day 2019, the agencies charged with protecting U.S. voting systems from hacking, penetration and malign foreign influence issued a statement warning of threats to future elections and touting "an unprecedented level of coordination" between federal, state and local government and the private sector.

"Adversaries may try to accomplish their goals through a variety of means, including social media campaigns, directing disinformation operations or conducting disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks on state and local infrastructure," the heads of DOJ, DOD, FBI, the National Security Agency, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement.

"While at this time we have no evidence of a compromise or disruption to election infrastructure that would enable adversaries to prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to tally votes, we continue to vigilantly monitor any threats to U.S. elections," they said.

*** The Department of Justice launched a new team to focus on detecting and fighting corruption in government procurement, including spotting and investigating antitrust violations like bid-rigging schemes. The Procurement Collusion Strike Force brings together the Antitrust Division at DOJ, the Inspectors General at the Department of Defense, the Postal Service and other agencies, along with FBI investigators.