VA special salary rate for tech and cybersecurity staff takes effect

The Department of Veterans Affairs has increased the salaries of its technology and cybersecurity employees by an average of 17% in a bid to boost its ability to hire private sector talent.

In a statement last week announcing its implementation of a new special salary rate, the department said the pay bump will take effect starting Aug. 4.

The VA has increased the salaries of its tech workers as agencies across the federal government work to bring fresh technology and cyber talent into government. Last July, the department requested approval for the special salary rate from the Office of Personnel Management, which is responsible for setting federal government pay policy.

The VA is the first agency to implement the pay rate, which applies to IT workers that fall under OPM’s 2210 occupational series. A full list of the salary rate tables can be found here.

U.S. civilian agencies have sought to follow the lead of the Department of Homeland Security in finding new ways to hire and manage cybersecurity professionals outside of traditional civil service requirements.

In 2021, that agency created a Cybersecurity Service as part of its Cyber Talent Management System, through which staff can be hired in qualified positions – excepted service roles with distinct qualification requirements and special pay flexibility.

News of the pay scale came ahead of a new National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy, which was launched Monday by the Biden administration. That strategy intends to provide a comprehensive approach to address both immediate and long-term public and private sector cyber workforce needs.

According to cybersecurity website CyberSeek, which is funded by the Department of Commerce, there are currently 663,434 cybersecurity job openings nationwide. This figure includes job openings across both the private and public sector.

Special salary rates are approved by OPM for certain government occupations and in locations where it is deemed competitive and difficult for agencies to recruit and retain employees.

Leidos teams up with Microsoft to push on generative AI in public sector

Federal contracting giant Leidos announced Monday a collaboration agreement with Microsoft aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence use for new and existing customers in the public sector.

According to the company, the new partnership will focus in the near term on generative AI solutions to support organizational efficiency, enhanced productivity and cross-domain applications.

“Our collaboration with Leidos will help accelerate adoption of cloud-driven solutions to improve our customers’ operations,” Angela Heise, corporate vice president of worldwide public sector at Microsoft said in a statement. “Leidos’ expertise in national security operations coupled with Microsoft’s advanced cloud, cyber, and AI technologies will enable our two organizations to develop innovative solutions to address a wide range of complex challenges faced by public sector organizations around the world.”

Leidos recently completed a tech migration of 20 critical support applications from an on-premise data center to Microsoft’s Azure Government cloud environment in support of the U.S. Navy. 

The migration was part of Leidos’ ongoing support of the Department of the Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) Service Management, Integration, and Transport (SMIT) program, enabling the Navy to monitor the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) with greater efficiency and collaboration while keeping security protocols in place.

The Microsoft AI partnership comes amid a flurry of major contract wins for Leidos, which provides a range of technology and research and development services to government agencies including the Pentagon and the intelligence community.

Last year, the Defense Information Systems Agency issued an $11 billion contract to the company to consolidate the networks of non-warfighting defense support agencies.

Prior contract awards include a $390 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security for low-energy portal systems, which are used to conduct non-intrusive inspections of passenger vehicles.

VA virtual agent will remain in beta for now

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to update its virtual agent chatbot with a new training model designed to discuss topics related to sexual assault. The expansion of the virtual agent chatbot is part of the VA’s 2023 fiscal year roadmap, though the chatbot will continue to remain in beta mode. The agency emphasizes that it “does not use chatbots as a replacement for direct crisis intervention.”

The update has not been previously published and details on the chatbot training method have not yet been established, the agency told FedScoop.

Still, the eventual upgrade comes as the VA tries to expand ways that veterans can discuss this critical and sensitive topic. In June, the agency announced that its 1-800-MyVA411 hotline can now be used to report sexual harassment or sexual assault at VA facilities. 

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes told FedScoop in a statement: “While the www.VA.gov chatbot platform has been active for over a year, each new feature that is part of our minimally viable product is released iteratively. So rather than classifying a feature mid-conversation with the user, VA decided to keep the beta classification at the platform level for now. Other Government agencies such as the Federal Student Aid do the same.”

“Whenever possible VA connects Veterans in crisis to experts directly and does not use chatbots as a replacement for direct crisis intervention,” he added. “The chatbot carries a disclaimer clearly stating that it is not a personal, medical, or mental health emergency bot. However, a level of sexual assault-related bot training is part of the fiscal year 2023 roadmap as an extension of the existing Veteran Crisis Line bot response.”

It’s not yet clear what the update will involve. John Davisson, an attorney at the Electronic Information Privacy Center, noted that the chatbots like these should make clear that they’re not meant for submitting personal identifying information — and emphasized the importance of cybersecurity safeguards.

“It should expunge at the end of the chat all information associated with a user’s interaction with the chat if they are seeking support relating to a sexual assault. Because it is — of course — possible that someone will, despite instructions otherwise,  end up submitting personal information or information that could be linked to them,” added Davisson. 

Lawmakers introduce bipartisan bill to create a federal AI research resource

A bipartisan, bicameral bill introduced Friday would establish a federal resource aimed at improving access to the computational power needed for AI research as interest in the technology booms.

The new legislation in the House and Senate would create the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a “national research infrastructure” that would give researchers access to data and tools needed to create trustworthy artificial intelligence. Details of the bill were first reported by Bloomberg Government.

“AI offers incredible possibilities for our country, but access to the high-powered computational tools needed to conduct AI research is limited to only a few large technology companies,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., a lead sponsor of the bill, said in a written statement. 

Establishing the NAIRR would change that by providing “researchers from universities, nonprofits, and government with the powerful tools necessary to develop cutting-edge AI systems that are safe, ethical, transparent, and inclusive,” Eshoo said. 

Advocates for NAIRR say the resource will be crucial to the future of AI research because of the vast computational resources the technology requires. The research field is currently dominated by big tech companies capable of providing such resources.

The legislation comes as Congress and the White House pursue strategies for AI use and regulation. It also follows recommendations the NAIRR task force — which included government bodies, academics, and private organizations — submitted to Biden and lawmakers in January. That task force estimated the budget for the NAIRR if established would be $2.6 billion for the initial six-year period.

The bill, named Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with Artificial Intelligence Act of 2023, or CREATE AI Act, was introduced in the House by the co-chairs and vice chairs of the Congressional AI Caucus: Eshoo and Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas; Don Beyer, D-Va; and Jay Obernolte, R-Calif. Its Senate companion was introduced by Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Under the legislation, the NAIRR would be overseen by the National Science Foundation and the daily operation would be managed by an outside organization that would be selected through a competitive process. 

That outside organization would be “a nongovernmental organization, which may be an independent legal entity or a consortium of 1 or more partners (which may include federally funded research and development centers),” according to the bill text. 

“To maintain United States leadership over our adversaries in technology, including AI, we must unleash the full potential of American innovation,” McCaul said in a written statement. “The legislation will open up resources to allow more great American minds to work together to develop smart, safe, and secure AI.”

Maximus data breach may have exposed information of 612,000 Medicare recipients, CMS says

A data breach that hit the corporate network of federal contractor Maximus earlier this year may have exposed the personal information of as many as 612,000 Medicare recipients, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agency said in a statement Friday it is working with the Reston, Virginia-headquartered company to notify by letter any individuals who may have been affected by the breach.

“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have responded to a May 2023 data breach in Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer software on the corporate network of Maximus Federal Services, Inc. ), a contractor to the Medicare program, that involved Medicare beneficiaries’ personally identifiable information (PII) and/or protected health information (PHI),” CMS said.

The agency’s statement comes after Maximus in a Wednesday SEC filing revealed that its corporate network was affected by the MOVEit ransomware attack, discovered in May, and that between 8 million and 11 million individuals may have had their information compromised.

In response to the incident, CMS and Maximus are sending letters to any Medicare recipients whose information may have been compromised and will offer free-of-charge credit monitoring services for 24 months.

No CMS or HHS IT systems were compromised as a result of the cyberattack.

Maximus is one of hundreds of private and public sector entities that have so far been affected by the MOVEit ransomware attack, which targeted customers of Progress Software’s file transfer tool.

Other companies compromised include energy giant Shell and U.S.-based First Merchants Bank. Cybersecurity company Telos, which provides services to the Department of Defense and the Department of State, has also been affected.

A Maximus spokesperson told FedScoop in a statement that “[d]ata privacy and security are among our top priorities, and we are committed to protecting the data entrusted to us.”

“On May 31, Progress Software Corporation announced a critical security vulnerability in MOVEit, their managed file transfer software, which is used by many companies, including Maximus. We quickly took measures to respond to the situation and are thoroughly investigating the issue,” the statement continued. “To be clear, we have not identified any impact from the MOVEit vulnerability on other parts of our corporate network and remain confident in the integrity of the network.”

The company added: “We have been working with the subset of our customers who were using MOVEit as part of their workflows and continue to provide updates and support to them as our investigation proceeds. We continue to closely monitor our systems for any unusual activity.”

Microsoft Azure OpenAI service approved for use on sensitive government systems

Microsoft’s recently launched Azure OpenAI service on Thursday received Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program high authorization, giving federal agencies who manage some of the government’s most sensitive data access to powerful language models including ChatGPT, FedScoop has learned.

The authorization will allow government departments’ cloud apps to integrate with and adapt models including GPT-4, GPT-3.5, and DALL-E for specific tasks, including content generation, summarization, semantic search, and natural language-to-code translation.

FedRAMP is a security framework that allows cloud providers to obtain governmentwide authorization for their products. The high authorization permits the use of a product in cloud computing environments that hold some of the government’s most sensitive, unclassified data, such as data held by law enforcement agencies or financial regulators.

Microsoft in early June launched its Azure OpenAI Service for the government to allow federal agencies to use powerful language models to run within the company’s cloud service for U.S. government agencies, Azure Government.

“The FedRAMP High authorization demonstrates our ongoing commitment to ensuring that government agencies have access to the latest AI technologies while maintaining strict security and compliance requirements,” Bill Chappell, CTO for Microsoft’s Strategic Missions and Technologies told FedScoop in a statement.

“We look forward to empowering federal agencies to transform their mission-critical operations with Azure OpenAI and unlocking new insights with the power of Generative AI,” he added. 

The new FedRAMP authorization comes as Microsoft faces intense scrutiny after hackers based in China breached the email accounts of senior U.S. officials, an operation that utilized a flaw in a Microsoft product and was discovered thanks to a logging feature that costs customers extra. 

Biden administration officials, security researchers and members of Congress have questioned the company’s commitment to security in the aftermath of the hack and why Microsoft is upselling customers for core security features.

Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service this week also received DoD IL2 Provisional Authorization (PA) issued by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

Notably, Microsoft says all traffic used within the Azure OpenAI service will stay entirely within its global network backbone and will never enter the public internet. The technology giant’s network is one of the largest in the world and made up of more than 250,000 km of lit fiber optic and undersea cable systems.

The tech company added that the Azure OpenAI Service does not connect with Microsoft’s corporate network, and that government agency data is never used to train the OpenAI model.

The Azure OpenAI Service can be accessed using REST APIs, Python SDK, or Microsoft’s web-based interface in the Azure AI Studio, and all Azure Government customers and partners will be able to access all models.

Microsoft is doubling down and highlighting its data, privacy, and security protections offered to government customers by encrypting all Azure traffic within a region or between regions using MACsec, which relies on AES-128 block cipher for encryption. 

Biden launches cancer tumor removal technology program through ARPA-H

The Biden administration launched a new program to fund the development of technologies that will help doctors remove cancerous tumors as part of its “cancer moonshot” efforts to fight against the disease.

The Precision Surgical Interventions program will be funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which was established last year to fund breakthroughs in the biomedical and health spaces. The announcement marks the second program the agency has funded and the first related to cancer, the White House said in a release Thursday.

Current technologies can’t help doctors “easily and fully distinguish cancer cells from normal surrounding tissue in the operating room,” the White House announcement said, which can lead to repetitive procedures, difficult recovery, cancer recurrence, and higher costs of care.

“ARPA-H’s new Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program aims to deliver groundbreaking new tools to enable surgeons to successfully remove cancer for patients through a single operation by better identifying and differentiating between healthy and cancer tissue,” the White House said. 

The technologies will assist surgeons with identifying and avoiding “important structures such as nerves, blood vessels, and lymph nodes, which can be mistakenly damaged during invasive surgical procedures,” the White House said. 

The administration will also ensure the technologies are accessible in rural and urban areas, in line with the cancer moonshot’s goals to advance equity, the White House said.

Ileana Hancu, the manager of ARPA-H’s Precision Surgical Interventions program, said the program seeks to “fundamentally change how surgery is done.” 

“Imagine if surgeries fixed problems flawlessly, the first time,” Hancu said in a statement from ARPA-H Thursday. She added that the tools have the potential to be used for other types of surgery outside of cancer.

ARPA-H will solicit proposals for ideas on how to improve the visibility of cancer and anatomical structures during surgery in a coming Broad Agency Announcement and anticipates multiple awards. Those awards will depend on the quality of the proposals and available funds, the White House said.

Congress initially funded ARPA-H with $1 billion through the appropriations process for fiscal year 2022. Lawmakers subsequently appropriated an additional $1.5 billion for the agency in the following year.

Energy Department awards $11.7M for quantum computing research projects

The Department of Energy has allocated $11.7 million in research funding for six quantum computing research projects.

In a press release on Thursday, the agency said the selected projects will last up to four years with $4.8 million being awarded from fiscal 2023 funding. The remaining funds are contingent on congressional appropriations.

The research initiatives are focused on exploring the limitations of the noisy, intermediate-scale quantum processors that are currently available. They will seek to develop tools to ascertain whether a particular quantum processor can advance the frontiers of computational science, even in the absence of formal error correction.

According to the department, the funded projects were picked through a competitive peer review process governed by the DOE quantum testbed pathfinder funding program.

Commenting on the research funding awards, Department of Energy Acting Associated Director for Advanced Scientific Computing Research Ceren Susut said: “Today’s supercomputers allow us to explore scientific problems in ways we haven’t been able to in the past – modeling dangerous or costly experiments, accelerating clean energy options, and mitigating the impacts of climate change. It’s imperative that we understand what quantum computers are capable of so we can build future generations of supercomputers.”

Details of the new supercomputer research funding came after the Energy Department yesterday announced $33 million in fresh funding for research projects focused on clean energy technology.

According to that update, the department has allocated support for 14 projects at universities in regions of the United States that historically have received a disproportionately low amount of research funding.

USAID delivers drones to Ukraine to help document war crimes

The U.S. Agency for International Development on Thursday announced its delivery of nine autonomous drones to Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General to document alleged Russian war crimes in the country. 

“These will aid the Office of the Prosecutor General to document the more than 115,000 instances of destroyed civilian infrastructure, and evidence of human rights abuses on frontline communities and liberated territories,” USAID said in a written statement.

The drones were donated by a U.S. manufacturer Skydio and delivered to Ukraine by USAID to support accountability and documentation of war crimes, the agency said. Each drone is equipped with 4K cameras used to take photos and video. 

The donation is one of several ongoing USAID initiatives to assist Ukraine. 

The agency has been a part of joint war crimes documentation visits with Ukraine’s Office of the Ombudsman for Human Rights and supported two Ukrainian human rights coalitions that “have documented more than 40,000 incidents of Russia’s war crimes since February 24, 2022,” the USAID said.

USAID also previously delivered other donations from U.S. companies to Ukraine, including Starlink data terminals from SpaceX, and laptops and software for schools from HP Inc. and Microsoft. 

While the donated drones will be used for documentation evidence collection, drones have also been important in military operations for the war in Ukraine. 

The country, for example, launched an “Army of Drones” project to procure a fleet of unmanned reconnaissance drones for the Ukrainian military through fundraising and donations. On a webpage for the project, the nonprofit Ukrainian World Congress calls drones “vital equipment that Ukraine’s defenders need in order to fight off the Russian invasion.”

Oak Ridge National Laboratory appoints new director

Stephen Streiffer, the current interim director at the Stanford University-based SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will be the next director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Streiffer is scheduled to begin his new post in October, according to a press release published on Thursday.

Streiffer, who earned a PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford, has an extensive experience overseeing laboratory research. During the pandemic, Streiffer co-directed the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory, which focused on various issues created by Covid-19, including testing and supply chain problems. He previously spent more than two decades at the Argonne National Laboratory, where he, among other responsibilities, served as deputy associate laboratory director for the Energy Sciences and Engineering Directorate.

“Stephen is a proven leader with diverse experience and a commitment to mission-driven research and development,” Lou Von Thaer, CEO of Battelle and chair of UT-Battelle, a nonprofit that runs the Oak Ridge national lab on behalf of the Department of Energy, said in a statement. “Throughout his career, Stephen has leveraged existing strengths to create new opportunities and partnerships that strengthen our nation’s ability to innovate and compete.”

Streiffer’s permanent appointment follows the retirement of Thomas Zacharia, who left in December after a 35-year career at the laboratory.

Oak Ridge is the country’s largest science and energy lab, which has nearly 6,000 people and a $2.5 billion research portfolio.

The lab has been at the forefront of the U.S. government’s race to expand its supercomputing capabilities and houses the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cray EX Frontier, which according to the Department of Energy is the world’s first and fastest exascale computer.