The Defense Department officially unveiled a zero trust strategy and roadmap, laying out how DoD components should direct their cybersecurity investments and efforts in the coming years to reach a “target” level of zero trust maturity over the next five years. The Zero Trust Framework employed across the Joint Force and the defense ecosystem protects our information systems from increasingly sophisticated attacks as our adversaries seek to affect our warfighters and DoD mission success. To read this strategy, click here.

The Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with Smith Pachter McWhorter procurement attorney, Zach Prince about fixed-price contracts and how the government uses this strategy. In this podcast, they talk about how contractors need to understand how important the wording is in this phrase and the different ways your costs can be driven up. To read a full transcription of this podcast, click here.

The Biden administration released the first-ever enforcement and penalty guidelines for foreign companies and investors that violate national security review protocols, a move that comes as federal officials and lawmakers have expressed growing concerns about the involvement of China and other adversarial nations in the operations of major technology companies. The new guidelines for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States—or CFIUS—describe how the committee will determine the imposition of penalties in instances where foreign investors or companies fail to properly safeguard national security. CFIUS, which is overseen by the Treasury Department, is responsible for identifying and mitigating national security risks related to foreign ownership of or investments in U.S. companies. To read more, click here.

The Defense Department made progress toward a “clean audit,” but not as much as officials hoped. The audit looks at every aspect of the department — an organization of about 2.9 million people with one of the federal government’s largest portfolios of real property. “The results of the fifth annual DOD-wide financial audit will be a disclaimer of opinion for DOD as a whole,” Michael J. McCord, the undersecretary of defense (comptroller)/chief financial officer, said. “This is the same as last year and … not unexpected. We did expect this disclaimer, but we will also sustain all of our prior year positive opinions, which cover approximately 39 percent of our assets.” To read more, click here.

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has partnered with N-Tier Illumination (TM) to better understand potential supply chain vulnerabilities and develop risk mitigation strategies. N-Tier Illumination (TM) is a secure, commercial supply chain discovery and risk management tool that helps organizations understand key relationships across their supply chain. Supply chain mapping is a new requirement for DLA. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2022, Section 841-10 USCA ? 2509, requires DOD to streamline and digitize its approach for identifying and mitigating risks to the defense industrial base. To learn more about this new initiative, click here.

In 2016, the General Services Administration issued a final rule to amend the GSA Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to require that vendors report transactional data from, among other things, GSA Schedules orders. Currently, in evaluating Schedules pricing, GSA makes use of two tools: the Commercial Sales Practices (CSP) format which identifies, for each Special Item Number (SIN) under a Schedules contract, the sales and pricing information juxtaposed to pricing (including discounts) provided to an identified Most Favored Customer (MFC), and the Price Reduction Clause (PRC), which requires the identification of a customer that serves as the basis of award and how changes in prices to that customer will affect the government. To read more, click here.

President Biden published the National Security Strategy which outlines how the Administration will advance America’s vital interests. The Strategy was brought in to protect the security of the American people, to expand economic opportunity, and to realize and defend the democratic values of the American way of life. To read the NSS fact sheet, click here, and to read the full report, click here.