FCW Insider: Jan. 30

With a March deadline looming, the General Services Administration is checking on how agencies are moving ahead with their telecom transition plans. Mark Rockwell has more on oversight of the $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract.

The Pentagon's acquisition CISO, Katie Arrington, gave a glimpse of timelines and expectations regarding the upcoming Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. Lauren C. Williams reports.

Initial bids are supposed to be in for the sale of the lease on the Old Post Office Building – home to President Donald Trump's downtown Washington, D.C. hotel. But it's not clear how much the government knows about the deal yet. Hill Democrats had questions at a recent hearing. Lia Russell explains.

Steve Kelman shares insights from a new book about negativity and the importance of seeking out the positive.

Quick Hits

*** Interior Secretary David Bernhardt grounded the department's fleet of non-emergency drones because of cybersecurity concerns. In a Jan. 29 order, Bernhardt stated that "in certain circumstances, information collected during UAS missions has the potential to be valuable to foreign entities, organizations, and governments." The Interior Department "is taking action to ensure that our minimum procurement needs account for such concerns, which include cybersecurity, technological considerations, and facilitating domestic production capability," he said.

The move is in line with a presidential determination that the U.S. must spur growth of a domestic drone and unmanned aerial vehicle industry to end the nation's reliance on cheap, Chinese-made models. Officials have long been concerned that drones designed to collect and transmit images and data to cloud systems that support the storage and analysis of that data could be subject to interference from the Chinese government and military.

*** The House Homeland Security Committee unanimously voted to approve legislation that would grant the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency administrative subpoena powers to obtain subscriber information for vulnerable IP addresses associated with critical infrastructure. It is a companion to a bill first introduced in the Senate late last year.

"This legislation is based on a simple premise we've all become familiar with: if you see something, say something," said Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), the bill's main sponsor. "We are taking a proactive step that gives CISA the ability to say something when they see something."