FCW Insider: Oct. 6

Space Force and cyber

Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center under the U.S. Space Force, said cybersecurity was increasingly integral to space missions and changes had to be made to infrastructure contracts.

New small biz GWAC dubbed Polaris

A draft request for proposals for a new small business contract vehicle is expected from the General Services Administration in the coming months.

Comment: A future-proof security model for a modern, mobile government

COVID-19 has shown the importance of the extensibility and scalability of the cloud and has been a forcing factor, expediting modernization initiatives – including security modernization.

Quick Hits

*** More than 30 House Democrats are asking Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to change mandatory payroll tax deferral in effect for federal employees to make it optional.

"Federal workers and members of the military…report feeling unfairly singled out for mandatory payroll tax deferral. Private companies and business organizations were given the flexibility not to participate in the program, and have largely elected not to defer collection of payroll tax obligations," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and colleagues stated in the letter.

*** A new bill from Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai'i) would allow all federal workers to carry over leave accrued above the 240-hour cap because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six other Senate Democrats joined the pair in introducing the Federal Worker Leave Fairness Act.

"This bill makes sure that no federal worker loses their leave because of this or any future pandemic," Hirono said in a statement.

*** In the wake of a ransomware attack on the Clark County School District, Nevada Democrats Sen. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto want to know if the Departments of Education and Homeland Security are collaborating on addressing cyberattacks that target schools.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cyberattacks and ransomware attacks have significantly increased," the lawmakers wrote in an Oct. 2 letter. "The federal government must help elementary and secondary schools obtain the tools and resources to protect and combat cyber threats."