The new center was formerly located in Alexandria, Va. and Symantec also operates centers in Australia, India and the UK.

Brian Dunphy, a Symantec senior product management director, said the new center provides nearly twice the amount of technical staff.

The security operations centers track known and emerging threats and analyze more than 12 million logs per day.

Photo By: Miosw

The General Services Administration is exploring a purchase of tablet computers and wants to know if U.S. small businesses have what the agency would want.

In a request for information, GSA said the tablets must be manufactured by a small business in the U.S. and meet encryption standards established by the National Institutes of Technology.

GSA is asking respondents to include previous and current agencies that are using the tablet, where the tablet is made and what operating system the tablet uses.

GSA is requiring the tablets have a screen size of between 7 and 11 inches in height, between 4 and 8 inches in width and less than one inch in diameter.

GSA is also requiring the tablets weigh no more than two pounds and have:

• Application support
• Built-in camera
• Data wipe capabilities if lost or stolen
• Eight hours minimum of battery life
• Internet browser support
• Touch screen
• VPN and remote access capabilities
• Wi-Fi access

Photo: Stasys Eidiejus

The U.S. has closed its embassy in Syria but could still use social media to communicate with Syrians, NextGov reports.

Experts told NextGov that State Department officials could still interact with Syrian activists and citizens on Facebook or Twitter.

The department has not confirmed plans to conduct a virtual embassy, similar to what was done in December for Tehran, the report said.

The department launched a virtual embassy site for Iran in December and posts information about visas, statements from officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other topics.

According to the OpenNet Initiative, nearly 20 percent of Syrians and 30 percent of Iranians can access the Internet.

Collin Anderson, an independent researcher, told NextGov that a website for Syria could easily transition to the structure of the website for Iran.

Anderson also said social media has an audience that has not already formed an opinion on an issue.

NASA image

NASA is accepting proposals for low-cost flight demonstration of small satellite technologies through the agency’s Edison program.

NASA said the program is intended to demonstrate communication systems, proximity operations and propulsion systems.

In a broad agency announcement, NASA said the program is part of an effort to lower the threshold for accessing space and expand the small-space community.

Executive summaries of proposals are due March 4 and selected projects must be completed within two to three years and cost no more than $15 million.

NASA will work with selected applicants to conduct demonstration flights.

NIST’s Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology said the 700 megahertz spectrum range, known as the D block, for public safety is attractive because of its propagation and penetration characteristics.

The panel did not take a position on whether the D block should be allocated to public safety.

The panel said public safety could also unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4 gigahertz to 5  gigahertz range, television white space and 60-to-100 gigahertz range.

The paper also suggests Internet protocols will be necessary components for the network since they incorporate data, voice and video communication.

A network based on Internet would be more flexible and can bridge new technologies into present designs, the paper said.

The panel also recommended the network use authentication more advanced than passwords, easily replaceable, interoperable and rugged equipment and established standards that permit interoperable devices.

The panel did not release a definite plan of action but said creating a framework for cooperation is the most productive avenue for progress on developing the network. 

Photo: Christopher Hall

The Interior Department launched a portal Thursday allowing employees to access the agency’s network on mobile devices, Federal News Radio reports. 

“Any device that will access a network can access this new system that we’re launching today,” Andrew Jackson, deputy assistant secretary for technology, information and business services, said to Federal News Radio.

Interior employees can now access the internal network using an Apple or Android device, for example, to record his time and attendance. 

Jackson said the department is aiming to give employees more flexibility to get work done while reducing some of the department’s device management costs. 

The department also aims to allow employees to have mobile access to the department’s internal email and Sharepoint systems.

Photo: Juanjo Tugores

 In a 2010 strategic concept report, NATO said cyber attacks were becoming more damaging to government administrations and economies.

NATO leaders are meeting in Brussels, Belgium this week but cybersecurity measures from the organization are still not clear because NATO is not sure of what to do in the event of a major cyber attack, Wired reports.

NATO is also unsure of what it needs to protect.

“We need to think these things through,” said Jamie Shea, NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, according to Wired.

Shea added that NATO is focusing primarily on developing defensive strategies in cyberspace.

NATO is also unsure of its level of involvement in the event of a cyberattack because countries such as the U.S. have mostly private information infrastructures for cyberspace.

Other countries in Europe have government involvement in developing information infrastructures.

(navy.mil)

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command plans to have its next generation shipboard network on a destroyer by late fiscal year 2012, SPAWAR said Wednesday.

Northrop Grumman won a potential $637.7 million contract this week to develop and produce the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services network.

SPAWAR said CANES will provide a common computing infrastructure for applications in command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I).

SPAWAR said CANES was developed through consolidating five legacy network programs into a single unit and provides computer-controlled operations and communications.

SPAWAR expects that CANES will be on more than 180 ships, submarines and maritime operations centers by 2020.

NIST image

The National Institute of Standards and Technology will award $10 million for pilot projects aimed at creating a trusted online identity using aspects other than passwords or simple IDs.

NIST said on Wednesday it launched a competition for the funds, which will range from $1.25 million to $2 million per year.

A NIST-hosted program office for the White House’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace will manage the competition.

The NSTIC is a White House initiative to encourage collaboration between advocacy groups and the public and the private sectors to make online transactions more secure.

The Federal Funding Opportunity allots funding for five to eight projects for up to two years.

The FFO says proposals can include technologies that:

• create identity hubs that validate credentials with strong authentication methods
• incentivize customers to use trusted authentication methods instead of user IDs and passwords
• improve ways to both enhance consumer privacy and meet business and security needs
• are interoperable across technologies such as smart cards, one-time passwords and digital certificates

Projects can be submitted through March 7.

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.