Veterans Affairs awarded a $3.7 million contract to SMS, Inc., Aug. 14, to provide “enhanced data security encryption” for all agency computers. The plan calls for all VA laptop computers to have the new encryption program within four weeks of the Aug. 18 start date. After that, SMS will move on to desktop computers and portable media. Sen. Larry Craig, chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called this contract, and the one last week to provide credit analysis, “major steps forward” following the May 3 data theft affecting more than 26 million veterans and military members—and subsequent VA tribulations.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
