TSA Adds $60M to Human Capital Contract with Accenture
The Transportation Security Administration has increased the contract ceiling of its job hiring contract with Accenture [ACN] by $60 million to $350 million, allowing the agency’s Human Capital office to continue to recruit, hire and maintain a diverse, qualified workforce. Accenture’s Federal Services business has held the contract since 2016. The contract is set to expire on Aug. 30.
DHS S&T Awards ANALYGENCE $20M for Financial Services Support
Professional services provider ANALYGENCE says it has won a $20 million financial services support contract from the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. The Maryland-based company says it secured the contract as the managing member of the CETA Joint Venture, which also includes the Kenjya-Trusant Group. Both companies are service-disabled veteran-owned. ANALYGENCE says the new contract expands and diversifies its work for DHS.
Israel’s Rafael to Provide EMP-Protected Radio to U.S. Power Company
Israel’s Rafael says a “leading U.S. power company” has contracted for and installed a Federal Communications Commission-certified version of Rafael’s electromagnetic pulse (EMP) BNET radio as part of its EMP protection strategy. Rafael says this is the first commercial installation of a BNET radio, which is a software-defined cognitive radio with EMP protections for “Black Sky” hazards and other potential threats. Black Sky hazards are catastrophic events—man-made or natural—that severely disrupt the routine functions of critical infrastructures in multiple regions for long durations. “This first commercial installation of the BNET signifies a major achievement for us, and it demonstrates our customer’s confidence in our unique, patented communication system capabilities,” says Amihai Dekel, director of business development at Rafael’s C3 directorate. “The BNET family of radios is a family of software-defined cognitive radios that allow end-users to talk and share data alongside video from all ends of the network over great distances, over several states.”
DHS S&T Awards R&D Contracts for Securing Mobile Networks
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has awarded the first research and development contracts under the newly-launched Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI). The SRMNI project is managed by S&T’s Mobile Security R&D program and addresses CISA’s priorities of securing the mobile supply chain as well as the critical mobile network infrastructure, including 5G. The initial seven awards are focused on developing protections for legacy—2g, 3G and 4G—cellular networks, building security into the 5G network, and developing end-to-end protection of network traffic. The awardees are: 4K Solutions, LLC of Georgia, $1.6 million to develop an integrated set of functional capabilities and security solutions that will defend users against having their communications monitored over susceptible phone networks; Commdex, LLC of Georgia, $2 million to develop and evaluate end-to-end security controls for 5G devices, 5G Radio Access Network, core and transport network architectures; Texas A&M Univ., $1.1 million to develop a secure data and voice network architecture that supports secure landline-to-landline, landline-to-mobile, and mobile-to-mobile communications; Aether Argus Inc. of Georgia, $1.4 million to develop a firmware-anomaly detection system for 5G infrastructure components that will monitor device radio frequency emissions to detect operational irregularities; Univ. of Florida, $1.7 million to develop testbed prototype solutions for 4G Long Term Evolution-capable calling devices with a secure distance bounding protocol, fuzzing infrastructure optimized for core LTE protocols, device link location measurements, and encryption; Red Balloon Security of New York City, $750,000 to expand its Symbiote embedded defense technology to embed against mobile network infrastructure firmware attacks; and AdaptiveMobile Security, Inc. of Texas, $1.2 million to develop a solution that uses stateful communication protocols with security-focused advanced analytics algorithms and a global threat intelligence service to ensure mobile network borders are continually secured.
Coast Guard Awards Mare Island $11M Task Order for Polar Star SLEP
The Coast Guard has awarded Mare Island Dry Dock an $11.1 million task order to conduct service life extension project (SLEP) on the service’s Polar Star heavy polar icebreaker. The task order covers annual maintenance on the ship and its support systems, as well as SLEP work times including propulsion hub removal and reinstallations for all three propulsion shafts, boiler biennial maintenance and recapitalization of the starboard disconnect coupling on the main reduction gear. The SLEP effort will extend the cutter’s service life by four years. The work will be phased from 2021 to 2025 and be coordinated so that the Polar Star and meet its operational commitments such as its annual mission to Antarctica.
DHS S&T Awards Research Funds to Minority Serving Institutions
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has awarded nine faculty members at various schools $446,200 in funding to continue their Summer Research Team program for research projects at S&T’s Centers of Excellence. The award, made under the Minority Serving Institutions program, are for homeland security-related subjects. The COEs and the projects are: Arctic Domain Awareness Center, Arctic Oil Spill Detection Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks and Satellite Data; Borders, Trade & Immigration Institute, High Sensitivity, Low-Cost Field Assays; Center for Accelerated Operational Efficiency, A Simulation-Based Data Driven Approach to Manage the Allocation of Airport Security Screening Resources in Airport Terminal Checkpoints; Coastal Resilience Center, Storm Surge Prediction with Physics-Guided Machine Learning Models, Enhancing Personal Decision Making During and After a Hurricane to Preserve Wellness; and Combined Atmospheric-Storm Surge Modeling of Hurricane Florence (2018); Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis, Developing a Shared Cyber Forensic Intelligence Repository for Collaborative Cybercrime Analysis; Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute, Improving Routing Security and Reliability in Large and Dense IoT Networks; and Maritime Security Center, SENSE: Low-Coast, Handheld Sulfur Emission Detection Device for Coast Guard Marine Inspectors.