Quick Hits: Dec. 5

*** A reminder that today's DevOps workshop has been postponed because of the National Day of Mourning and the closure of the federal government.  Watch FCW's events lineup for a new date.

*** Department of Transportation CIO Vicki Hildebrand is stepping down.  Hildebrand informed DOT staff in Dec. 4 email, and confirmed her departure plans to FCW later that day.  Federal News Network first reported Hildebrand's exit. 

*** The National Republican Congressional Committee suffered a major hack of its communications this year prior to the midterm elections, three senior party officials told Politico.

A managed security services provider discovered in April that at least four senior NRCC aides had their email communications compromised by an unknown party, exposing thousands of emails from the organization to outside surveillance "for several months." Officials alerted the FBI and hired law firm Covington and Burling along with PR firm Mercury Public Affairs to manage the fallout.

According to the report, not even House Republican leaders like outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) knew about the hack until Politico reporters contacted the NRCC for comment this week.

None of the parties involved have come forward to make a formal attribution at this time, though the story says GOP officials privately suspect it was done at the behest of a foreign nation.

"Politicians who've insisted on viewing this threat through a narrow partisan lens over the past two years have put us at a massive disadvantage," tweeted Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "It's time to wake up."

The NRCC was involved in negotiations earlier this year with counterparts at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about an agreement not to use hacked or stolen materials against each other's candidates. However, those talks broke down in September and the DCCC eventually released their own, unilateral pledge.

*** The FBI announced the timeline for the recompete of its $5 billion IT services and supplies contract, known as IT Triple-S. A draft solicitation is expected Jan. 11, with a Jan. 18 deadline for questions from industry. A final request for quotations is expected to be released on Feb. 1. The bureau is expecting to make 15 to 22 awards on each of six tracks: end user services, business application services, delivery services, platform services, infrastructure services and delivery services. The FBI estimates that 10 to 15 awards on each track will go to large vendors and five to seven will be allotted to small businesses.

The new IT Triple-S is going to market as a blanket purchase agreement open to vendors prequalified on the General Services Administration's Schedule 70. It replaces a 2010 mega-contract with an eight year period of performance and a $30 billion ceiling that comprised 46 contracts, mostly to small businesses. According to GovWin, $2 billion was awarded over the lifetime of the original IT Triple-S.