The governmentwide cybersecurity effort known as the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program is hung up by its second bid protest in the last few months.

HP Enterprise Services submitted a protest to the Government Accountability Office on March 9 of the $29 million award to Knowledge Consulting Group under task order 2. KCG won the deal under the CDM blanket purchase agreement to provide the Homeland Security Department with a variety of cybersecurity products and services.

GAO says HP Enterprise Services is challenging the General Services Administration’s evaluation of proposals. GSA acts as the procurement arm for the DHS-run program.

GAO has until June 17 to decide.

A spokeswoman for HP Enterprise Services said the company declined to comment on its bid protest.

A DHS spokesperson referred the matter to GSA. An email to GSA seeking comment on the protest was not returned.

An email to KCG seeking comment wasn’t returned.

HP Enterprise Services was one of 10 bidders for the first products and services task order. But it was the only unsuccessful vendor to submit a protest.

HP Enterprise Services lost the bid even though it runs one of the two DHS data centers.

This is the second protest of the CDM program.

In January, a CDM contract holder filed an agency-level protest with GSA about the task order for Group B, which likely includes the departments of Energy, Transportation, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.

It’s unclear what these two protests mean for the CDM program’s timeline. GSA and DHS expected to make several awards for CDM services this year.

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