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Small firms already have taken a disproportionate hit from DoD's pullback in 2013 spending, Pentagon officials say. Military acquisition leaders worry the sudden cuts will bankrupt small businesses that provide one-of-a-kind capabilities.
As sequestration draws nearer, contractor groups have pointed to alarming studies that show the 9 percent in across-the-board Defense cuts would throw at least 1 million people out of work and potentially cripple the defense and aerospace industries. But in a new report, the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit group which advocates reducing military spending, presented evidence that far fewer defense-sector jobs would be lost than industry has claimed and that defense companies would likely be able to absorb the defense cuts.
Identity management, standup of Cyber Command, and information sharing with the industrial base have been cited as key cyber accomplishments in the Department of Defense. But much work remains, experts say.
Letter, sent to 15 large vendors, asks for estimated impacts of sequestration on defense contractors.
The Defense Department is expanding its cybersecurity information assurance program to all companies in the defense industrial base. The Pentagon said that will add more protection to information that's on unclassified systems in the industrial base. The expansion follows a year-long pilot run of the assurance program.
A pilot program DoD established to share cyber threat information between the NSA and Defense companies will be made permanent and expanded to include approximately 200 companies in the coming months.
Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) introduced legislation to make sharing of classified cyber threat information easier between the government and the private sector. The bill builds on DoD's Defense Industrial Base pilot to share data about vulnerabilities. DoD plans to expand the DIB pilot to more than 200 companies in the coming year.
The Pentagon said it needs a much clearer picture of the subcontractors beneath the top tier of prime vendors it works with every day. DoD is trying to create a comprehensive map of the entire defense industry so it can keep critical suppliers healthy during an expected period of industry consolidation.
The Defense Department will focus its energies on trying to make its IT systems so hard to penetrate that adversaries won\'t bother trying. The Pentagon barely mentions offensive capabilities in its new cyber strategy.