NRO looks to illuminate supply chain risks

The National Reconnaissance Office is working more closely with its prime contractors to understand its supply chain and illuminate potential security concerns or other issues before they snowball.

Darwyn Banks, director for systems engineering directorate at the NRO, said the agency is pressing its prime contractors to have a better understanding of whether risky vendors might be involved in a program several tiers down the supply chain.

“I’m not saying we’re going to get these risks out of the food chain,” Banks said during a webinar hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. “We just need to know where they are so that we can manage them appropriately.”

The secretive satellite agency’s work on supply chain issues could inform broader federal efforts to address longstanding but evolving concerns about risks and security threats in the government’s supply base. The White House is currently reviewing how agencies report on cyber supply chain security risks.

NRO’s approach is aimed at addressing “privity of contract” restrictions that have often been a roadblock to the government gaining an understanding of a contractor’s proprietary supply base. But Banks said risks – whether they be small “single-point-of-failure” manufacturers or risky foreign vendors – are often present at lower tiers of any given system or program’s supply chain.

“I’m asking our primes, our second tier subs, to do a better job of knowing who their vendors and suppliers are,” Banks said. “Realistically, we’re not asking for anything that industry doesn’t already do. We’re engaging more to have those conversations so that when these problems pop up – not if, when they pop up – we can get to good and get to an answer sooner.”

The NRO now has an acquisition clause in its supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation that “specifically addresses the kinds of things we’re looking for help from our industry friends on supply chain,” Banks said.

“It’s been in place now for three years, and so it’s been rolling out on newer contracts,” he said.

Banks said the NRO also has business intelligence contracts to better understand the market of suppliers.

“We have supply chain illumination and supply chain due diligence capabilities here in house that I provide to the program offices, so that they can get good information when they’re going through a [request for proposals], for example, and they get that subcontractor management plan, they can have a better understanding of, ‘Here are the concerns we as a customer might have with this particular sub or that particular vendor or supplier,’” Banks said.

Banks said he would give his agency a B or B- grade on its supply chain efforts so far. But he said he’s been encouraged by how thoroughly NRO’s industry partners manage their respective supply chains.

“You have an awareness of what’s going on here. We just need to engage more and have those conversations,” Banks said. “Totally understand, those relationships, that’s all proprietary. But we on the government side know how to manage proprietary and engage with that. We need to have those conversations.”

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