Kevin Jackson, NJVC

Federal agencies that use platform-as-a-service in their cloud computing strategy can cut development costs by 50 percent, according to a recently released white paper by NJVC and Virtual Global.

In “Platform as a Service (PaaS): What Is It? Why Is It So Important?,” authors Kevin Jackson and Cary Landis outline why they believe PaaS is the new way to integrate software into the cloud.

Photo by Christopher Hall

Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel launched an interactive dialogue  Wednesday that looks for “stakeholders such as mobile experts, policymakers, developers, industry and citizens to submit their ideas on how to accelerate Federal mobility.”

While speaking at the CES Government conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, VanRoekel announced the launch of the National Dialogue on the Federal Mobility Strategy for citizens and government to put in their two cents for a government mobile road map, according to reports.

The dialogue is meant to accelerate the government’s adoption of mobile technologies for services such as information delivery, citizen engagement, reduced cost and an increase of productivity within the federal workforce, according to the dialogue site. 

Additionally, the dialogue wants contributions toward six core objectives in the federal mobility strategy, which include

1. Incorporate mobility in more government practices
2. Allow for shared mobile technologies among agencies
3. The ability to manage “mobile and wireless acquisition, inventory and expenses”
4. Create a foundation for mobile services
5. Foster collaboration
6. Establish governance

The dialogue is open from Jan. 11 to Jan. 20, 2012, after which VanRoekel, the General Services Administration and others will use dialogue ideas in drafting the federal mobility strategy.

Participants are able to submit an idea, comment on others’ ideas, rate ideas and tag ideas in their own submissions. 

The strategy is to come in 60 days, according to Federal Computer Week, with coordinated acquisition vehicles in place within 180 days.

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Earlier this month, a diverse crowd of government agents, private developers and hackers from around the world gathered at a Hilton in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to get a firsthand look at some of the world’s most cutting edge cyber warfare and surveillance technologies.

According to Bloomberg news, the “Wiretapper’s Ball,” codename for the ISS World trade show, hit the scene around nine years ago as a convention for the surveillance community.

Shows are held every few months in countries around the world. They are organized and run by Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategic Inc., a McLean, Va.-based producer of telecommunications conferences.

Bloomberg reported the show attracted high-profile vendors such as Italy’s Area SpA, Germany’s Utimaco Safeware AG (USA) and FinFisher, Prague’s Trovicor GmbH. They promoted their products through displays, conferences and networking. 

The “invite only” roster featured 871 individuals from 56 countries, setting the scene for an underground secretive network.

At the events, merchants showcase their electronic interception tools to buyers from governments around the world, some of which include Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

The events draw police involved in criminal investigations, surveillance and counter terrorism efforts, Lucas said. Phone company executives come out too, as every communication network hosts wiretapping and tracking capabilities in times of emergencies.

In June of this year, ISS World held a conference in Prague. Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, buyers from Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry and India’s cabinet secretariat were among the government agencies present at the event.

Lucas said he has banned government representatives from Syria and Iran ISS  events, but Bloomberg has found this hasn’t stopped these countries from attaining some of the same surveillance gear featured at ISS.

Because of the type of business, secretive underground cybersecurity conferences composed of a melting pot of nations from around the globe is accepted as the nature of the beast.

One might wonder what the environment is like at a convention filled with elite cyber hackers and high ranking surveillance officials. Bloomberg reported that paranoia lingers in the air at every moment, as attendees are pre-warned to limit cyber activity and communication to safeguard private information.

The conference is all business. No extravagant dinners, trips or cocktail parties. Bloomberg reported that “clients and suppliers don’t want to be seen with each other in public,” as the event is seen as a potential recruiting ground for spies looking for sources.

The conference was on cell phone tracking, social network investigations, deep packet inspection, internet application decoding, call data retention and cyber surveillance, according to an online brochure for the event.

The event was composed of various workshops and seminars called “tracks,” specializing in special areas of cybersecurity and surveillance. The general registration fee for vendors was between $1,995 and $2,295 and participant fees ranged from $995 to $1,295.

As cyber hacking and surveillance systems continue to develop, the demand for cutting-edge technology to assist law enforcement personnel and combat cyber warfare is at an all high demand.

Lucas said business is booming with a nearly 20 percent increase every year, according to Bloomberg. Annual revenues were between $3 billion and $5 billion, and show no sign of slowing down.

From Lockheed Martin

A cybersecurity breach at intelligence think tank Stratfor over the weekend struck close to the central point of debate over how to secure domestic networks, Josh Smith wrote in the National Journal today.

Smith wrote that this debate “has revolved around the division between government and private sector security,” where businesses want more cybersecurity protections, but largely do not want the government regulating and protecting private networks and information.

The issue is particularly relevant to companies who have access to classified government information or help protect, manage or operate infrastructure critical to national security.

Although it does not exist to work with classified information, Stratfor keeps close ties with government agents, international corporations, contractors and other major players in national security and defense.

Anonymous, the loosely assembled group of hackers who has claimed responsibility for the breach, released a list of company clients that included the Defense Department, Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the United Nations, the New York times reported Dec. 25.

While an Associated Press report found Anonymous was most likely unable to steal proprietary information from any Stratfor customer, sensitive information could still have been compromised.

A declared spokesman for Anonymous wrote in an online post that the “wealth of (stolen) data includes correspondence with untold thousands of contacts who have spoken to Stratfor’s employees off the record over more than a decade.”  

Some defense contractors and the government recently participated in a pilot program where they shared cybersecurity information and Congress will soon consider a bill that will formally allow cyber exchange between more private sector companies and the government.

But, the Stratfor breach has some questioning if more drastic measures are needed to shore up domestic networks, including the possibility of more direct government involvement.

“When you have a major firm specializing in cybersecurity getting hacked this way, it gives you an idea of how difficult this problem is and how much ground still needs to be covered to better secure our cyber networks,” Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said in an e-mail to National Journal.

Smith noted an October Symantec and National Cyber Security Alliance report that found that although the majority of cyber attacks are on small businesses, most companies with fewer than 500 employees are unprepared to handle a cyber attack. 

“The scary thing is that no matter what you do, every system has some level of vulnerability,” Jerry Irvine, a member of the National Cyber Security Task Force told the New York Times. “The more you do from an advanced technical standpoint, the more common things go unnoticed. Getting into a system is really not that difficult.”

On the award, the business unit will research next-generation combat system display concepts and how to utilize high-resolution color displays.

The announcement did not specify if these efforts are meant to complement the commercial off-the-shelf technology General Dynamics will develop for total ship monitoring on the contract.

The company will also research migrating Naval combat system software to open systems and the use of JAVA applications in combat systems.

For more information on the contract details, check out our coverage on ExecutiveBiz, here.

Photo: Chris Harvey

With the year’s end approaching, many information technology firms and officials are making their stance on what they believe is to come and has come to be in terms of cybersecurity.

“As we head into 2012, many CIOs are evaluating the various aspects of IT, looking ahead to the new technologies that can help them drive business growth in the years ahead,” said Mark White, principal and chief technology officer of Deloitte Consulting LLP and co-author of Deloitte’s recently released report.

“Mobility, social, analytics, cloud and cyber are technology forces each impacting business today. The intersection of these represents an opportunity for new business technology value and innovation,” White added in a company release.

Deloitte points to cloud, mobility, architecture and data as things that will play increasingly large roles in the industry, both as a way to work and as things needing to be secured. Iron Bow Technologies, Kroll and Verizon are ending the year on similar notes.

Prem Iyer, information security practice director for Iron Bow posted about how one can “secure the future,” for 2012. In the post, Iyer recalls the amount of agencies who were subject to attacks, hacktivism and the likes. Reports by Symantec confirm such occurrences, with month-by-month reports, in fact.

Looking forward, the post focuses on the increase of the bring-your-own-device movement where government employees are continuing to use their own mobile devices for work purposes. With this comes additional challenges for IT managers and security.

Iron Bow said that this coming year will give rise to use of the next-generation firewalls, which in their opinion will put application visibility and application control at the firewall level.

Cloud computing made their trend list, although many have made the claim that its no longer a trend, but a norm. The issue in the forefront for cloud is the discussion on the security concerns related to cloud adoption. 

Additional trends and predictions outlined in the post were application whitelisting, which is expected to gain traction since it gives administrators control approved and un-approved applications access and implement a strong defense strategy.

The post also indicated that as pages like Facebook are accessed more frequently on mobile devices and federal employees are more frequently using those devices, anti-malware is going to be a necessity in order to protect networks.

Kroll, an Altegrity company came to similar conclusions, seeing mobile technology both on the rise and at high vulnerability to cyber threats. Social media make the list again as an increased method for conducting social attacks. Cloud, too, was on Kroll’s list as something gaining speed, and in effect, vulnerability.

The company points to business and government cooperation as an increasingly important effort for economic and infrastructure health.

In terms of policy, Kroll believes that breach notification laws will “gain traction outside of the U.S.” It cites China and Germany as nations already making a practice of policy requiring breach notification by law. In effect he response team will have a permanent seat at the table.

Verizon spells out similar predictions for the coming year. It too points out mobile malware as a concern, as well as app stores being a moving target. In effect, Verizon sees increased security for application scoring systems (something that cloud and log-ins will see as well), stores and apps with build-in security.

Data, whether it be big or not, will have to be protected on all fronts, says Verizon. As that data grows, the needs for analytics and security of this data will too be a big focus in 2012, something companies like Deloitte and IBM can no doubt agree with.

Infrastructure and healthcare are two buzz word areas that Verizon sees getting attention. Digital health records, once fully implemented, will be accessed from mobile devices. This calls for the security of both the system and device accessing it. The smart grid’s security standards will continue to evolve as well, with a federal framework eventually superseding state regulations, says the company.

“This new era of hyper-connectivity, which is compounded by the blurring of lines between our professional and personal lives, it’s everyone’s responsibility — whether as a business user or a consumer — to safeguard our online activities and interact with technology responsibly to protect our assets, identity and privacy,” said Roger Thompson, emerging threats researcher, ICSA Labs.

With the end of one year and the launch into another, GovConExec, published by The New New Internet’s parent company Executive Mosaic, has released it’s eighth issue in the second year of publishing.

The Winter 2011 issue, C4ISR: GovCon Leaders Enable a New Era, delves into the new C4ISR, policy, executives and industry changing technologies that are a must read to stay ahead of the curve.

GovConExec draws out how government contractors’ work with C4ISR is reshaping warfare and the reach of domestic capabilities and technical functionalities. 

Top executives speak on how cybersecurity, mobility and C4ISR combine to drive high federal demand with major players such as CACI International, BAE Systems, GeoEye, Harris Corporation, URS Corp. among others. 

The magazine, which focuses on leaders and business in government contracting, features the FedTech SoundOff  as well where industry leaders talk about hot topics such as biometrics, cloud and the ever-changing field of cybersecurity. Industry-wide executives sound off about biometric standards and progress, a theme similar to cloud and cybersecurity. 

The magazine also highlights chief information officers, who have recently found themselves at the forefront of information technology transformations, business and government in the CIOs at the Forefront section.

Other top executives to take note of in the magazine are the featured CEO of QinetiQ Duane Andrews and Mark Gerencser of Booz Allen Hamilton. Gerencser, Booz Allen’s executive vice president, is noteworthy in GovConExec’s infrastructure story, The Big Build Up, where he defines the three major infrastructure lifelines.

Key information about biofuel policy and changes in the field are another highlight to be found in the C4ISR issue, not to mention the annual list of Top People to Watch, featuring 15 industry and government leaders that are sure to make big impacts in the coming year. 

Grab the full-length magazine to make sure you’re up to speed on everything you need to know about the GovCon industry. Subscriptions available, here. 

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for example, plans to increase cybersecurity research spending by 50 percent over the next five years, according to an ExecutiveGov report 

As the government is making moves to spend more in cybersecurity, contractors too are gearing up for projects in the cyber field. A recent report by the Washington Post indicated that many firms are now turning to cybersecurity.

SAIC Inc. recently opened an innovation center in Fort Meade last year, near the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.

Booz Allen Hamilton for its part opted to build a cyber network that can work with multiple clients nationwide from their McLean-based facility. 

Booz Allen Chief Operating Officer Horacio Rozanski noted his firm is serving clients on the West Coast out of Red Bank, N.J. and Federal Aviation Administration clients out of Huntsville, Ala.

“Having that capability, we believe, is going to be market-driving,” he said.

Dave Melcher

Contractors are also looking to drive up revenue by what SAIC officials call “readiness and sustainment” of old equipment, trucks and aircraft. SAIC recently won two task orders worth $600 million to sustain blast proof trucks in Kuwait and Afghanistan.

ITT Exelis President and CEO David Melcher told the Post that sustainment work is the way to go.

“If you’re going to cut out the new systems, what are you going to do? You’re going to fix up the old systems,” he said. Contractors are also doing the work for contract wins themselves, rather than subcontracting the work.

The cloud has been marketed and implemented as a way to improve communication, speed up business operations, cut costs and reduce energy consumption.

A global survey, composed of 3,645 IT decision makers in eight different countries, was conducted independently by TNS and funded by CSC. The results provided some key statistics in the areas of cloud computing.

Today, 45 percent of U.S. government agencies have moved at least one work flow to the cloud, and it doesn’t look like that number is going to shrink anytime soon, according to the survey. In addition, the number of small businesses turning to the cloud is also growing rapidly.

The survey recorded 33 percent of respondents as reporting the primary reason they moved to the cloud was to improve accessibility through multiple devices, 21 percent as a way to increase the speed of their businesses and 17 percent of respondents reported cutting costs was the most influential reason.

Ninety-three percent of all companies surveyed said they noticed at least one area of improvement in their IT department after moving to the cloud and 47 percent of companies reported lowering operating cost after switching over.

In addition, 64 percent of companies reported they reduced waste and lowered energy consumption when using the cloud.

An online poll by Unisys Corporation furthered the survey findings. In polling 300 respondents throughout September and October of 2011, the company found that 50 percent of respondents ranked cloud computing as their top IT investment priority for 2012.

In addition, 21 percent of respondents ranked cybersecurity as a top priority, and an additional 21 percent ranked mobile/social computing as their top priority.

“Over the past two years cloud computing has moved into the mainstream of IT investment decisions,” said Colin Lacey, vice president, Data Center Services and Solutions, Unisys.

“From the US Federal Government’s ‘cloud first’ policy to enterprise business units’ demands for greater IT responsiveness, business decision makers are embracing both private and public cloud computing models,” added Lacey.

FedScoop, the event sponsor, reported some 300 government and industry leaders to be in attendance. The focus was on how federal agencies can best utilize and implement the 25-Point Plan to Reform Federal IT, specifically open source.

The event featured multiple government officials and Red Hat’s own public sector executives including Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, who was the event moderator. Smith described open source in government as “pervasive,” according to RedHatGov’s Twitter feed. 

Peter Levin, chief technology officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, furthered Smith’s open source description by saying it is “about transparency, about a vivid roadmap and getting better value for your money,” according to RedHatGov.

Levin went on to say that the administration is attempting to get out of the vendor lock-in and challenged those in the room asking, “what if your next product wasn’t a tool?”

One highlight from the event reported by FedScoop was Gunnar Hellekson‘s, Red Hat chief technology strategist, and Federal Deputy CTO Chris Vein‘s discussion of the important role open source can play for the government. 

According to the company tweets, Vein indicated that the federal government is not only trying to build “grassroots support” for open source, but also create guidelines for it. Open source is a way in which government can be smarter, “save costs and improve value,” said Vein according to RedHatGov. 

According to Wolf Tombe, chief technology officer of Customs and Border Protection, the common “infrastructure is based on open standards. Everything moving forward will be based on that infrastructure,” reported RedHatGov.

U.S. Army Major Gen. Nick Justice added to Tombe’s claim that an infrastructure that allows innovation with minimal cost to update is ideal, according to RedHatGov. The Army is Red Hat’s biggest customer, according to Tombe, who indicated he didn’t want to be tied to a system.

“I want my soldiers to build a solution and own it,” he said as reported in a tweet. Justice said that it’s important to learn all sides of the business.

The single day symposium devoted to open source exploration included breakout sessions atop the already full keynote discussion lineup. Cloud best practices and the how-to to implement open source solutions in federal agencies were the top topics.

Tombe, who wrapped up the event with his discussion of lowering the cost of government, may have summed up the event best a tweet where he reportedly said, “the move to open source and open standards are absolutely critical for us.”