*** The House of Representatives passed a $4.6 billion emergency supplemental appropriation to provide funds for a humanitarian and law enforcement response to the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border on June 27, just before leaving for the July 4 recess. The bill was passed by the Senate and is expected to be signed into law. One provision in the legislation extends the authority of the Department of Homeland Security to issue "other transaction authority" contracts to vendors for rapid prototyping and development of new technologies. The Silicon Valley Investment Program at DHS relies on OTA. That authority had lapsed at DHS as a result of the funding bill passed in February to end the partial government shutdown.
*** This week, the General Services Administration posted and withdrew a cloud security solicitation dubbed the FedRAMP Ideation Challenge. The challenge was designed to crowdsource input on how to speed up cloud security authorizations while reducing cost. According to GSA, the FedRAMP program office still plans to seek industry feedback on cloud authorization and the opportunity will be reposted in the coming weeks.
*** The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit is looking for advanced deception capabilities in a new solicitation released June 26. The solicitation seeks a prototype solution "that goes beyond traditional networked honeypots" and provides both cloud and on-premise decoy networks to fool intruders as well as quarantine and forensic capabilities. Submissions from vendors are due July 12.
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