As part of Winvale's guest blogger series, Benjamin Brooks, Vice President of Beryllium InfoSec Collaborative, is sharing his top 5 cyber security measures government contractors need to know. Winvale partnered with Beryllium to host a recent webinar, Managing Cyber Security Requirements in Today's Federal Market. When you think "contractor with the US Government," what do you think of? Bureaucracy? Guaranteed steady revenue? Those are the most popular responses, because after-all, we are in business to make money, right? But how many people reading this think of “cyber security” as one of the ideas surrounding contracting with the United States Government?

On August 13, 2019, a new interim rule instituted by GSA went into law that will have a direct effect on many GSA Contact Schedule holders. The new law will implement section 889 (a)(1)(A) of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019. The specific wording of the law, via Acquisition.gov, states:

The Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S number has long been the GSA’s official Unique Entity Identifier, but it is being replaced in December 2020. In its place will be a new Unique Entity ID, generated in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov). This new, as yet unnamed Unique Entity Identifier will be twelve characters long. The definition of uniqueness will not be changing. Uniqueness will continue to be based on an entity being a separate legal entity and/or associated with a separate physical address.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has just announced its findings on the Federal Government’s 2018 fiscal year, and it is great news for American small businesses. 2018 marks the 6th consecutive year the Federal Government has met their small business contracting goals. Not only did the federal government meet this goal in 2018, they surpassed it by $15 billion.

Background New bills working their way through congress can signal incredible opportunities for government contractors. The House has passed a series of bills related to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) management in the past month. Perhaps most prominent is H.R. 2083 which, if turned into law, will benefit small businesses tremendously. First introduced by California Democrat Correa Luis in April 2019, the bill has three main goals: to increase the share of equipment for DHS personnel procured by U.S. manufacturers, enhance regulation of delivery timelines, and determine whether to raise uniform allowances.

The Department of Homeland Security recently gained a new agency thanks to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018. The agency, called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), focuses on U.S. cybersecurity, infrastructure security, and emergency communications. This new initiative will require the collaboration of a variety of private and public-sector organizations, which could mean great upcoming opportunities for government contractors!