Publications & Articles

Last month, for the 3rd and final installment of our 3-part series about cyber security, supply chain assurance, architectural impacts & training, we heard from Robert Butler, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy, and Alan Chvotkin, Executive Vice President of the Professional Services Council. Here are some of the important take-aways:

• The new national strategy for dealing with cyber security issues is to presume a breach of cyber security; this results in a need for continuous innovation to detect breaches, in addition to preventing breaches in the cyber world.
• High levels in the government are pushing hard to find solutions to cyber threats – all at a time of shrinking budgets. But the efforts are likely to be piecemeal, not comprehensive.
• The Private Sector must be involved in providing solutions to these ever-changing problems. Contractors who can get top government people excited about a solution that also saves the government money have an edge in getting the work.
• The Private Sector must also find solutions to global supply chain assurance. Everyone is tied together electronically. Shore up the weakest link.
• Although the government does not want to share sensitive information with the Private Sector, it realizes that it must develop new approaches to allow this in order to permit contractors to come up with new solutions to these evolving issues.
• The cyber world must establish a uniform set of standards from which everyone can work.
• Data breaches are becoming more and more common, but communication about breaches to affected parties must be swift and relevant.
• The Bottom Line: Networks will be attacked. We must be prepared, as a nation, to detect attacks. This will require constant innovation and government cooperation with Industry.

With a successful conclusion to the 3-part series on Cyber Security, our next Dulles GovCon session will feature a top senior VP (Washington Ops) Roundtable Discussion from 3 of the major Primes about “What Can We Expect in 2012”. Stan Soloway from PSC will moderate this exciting topical discussion with Senior VPs from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman & Raytheon. It will be held on Wednesday, Feb 1st at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Washington Dulles from 11:30am to 1:30pm.

Please call us if you would like to discuss the substantive aspects of this presentation or for more information on GovConnections events. The Dulles Chamber asked OF&P’s Government Contracts Practice to continue as the lead law firm partnering with them on another year-long series on the changing dynamics of the Government Contract industry. We welcome your participation in future sessions!

David Lawrence 703-218-2181
Brian Darst 703-218-2140
Matthew Keller 703-218-2117
On Behalf of OF&P’s Government Contract Practice