FCW Insider: Aug. 2, 2021
The latest news and analysis from FCW's reporters and editors.
White House says agencies will pay for COVID tests as needed for feds
Under a new COVID prevention regime, civilian federal employees will have to either attest to their vaccination status or get regular tests. The federal government will organize and pay for testing for feds.
CISA debuts vulnerability disclosure platform
Federal civilian agencies can tap a bug reporting system fielded as a shared service by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to gather information on potential website and software vulnerabilities.
Senate-passed bill looks to modernize federal contracting, expand small business opportunities
A bipartisan bill seeks to expand federal contracting opportunities for small businesses and push government to modernize acquisition processes.
Comment: Globally connected data can safeguard the defense industrial and technology base
Data can play a critical role in planning and ultimately protecting the nation's valuable talent, resources and supplies.
Quick Hits
*** On Friday, the Government Accountability Office denied protests filed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Leidos-owned Dynetics, Inc. about their loss in a NASA procurement made in connection with a broad agency announcement seeking a lunar landing system to bring astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won the award with a bid of $2.9 billion. The protestors argued that the NASA broad agency announcement was meant to result in multiple awards.
*** A National Security Agency document released Thursday details some of the bad things that can happen when teleworking via public Wi-fi networks. The message from NSA: don't do it, but if you have to then use a personal or corporate virtual private network and confine your browsing to sites secured with the HTTPS protocol.
*** As of July 29, the House of Representatives has passed nine of 12 annual appropriations bills, including the Financial Services and General Government bill. The legislation doesn't specify a pay raise for federal employees, which clears the path for the 2.7% raise called for in the Biden administration's budget proposal.