UP FRONT.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

Stars and Stripes Maybe Not Forever

* The Pentagon found $5.7 billion in savings in a department-wide review, Acting Defense Department Comptroller Elaine McCusker said as she introduced the 2021 budget request.

Some of the billpayers: chemical-biological defense, counterdrug, non-statutory boards and commissions, and a proposed $15.5 million cut to Stars and Stripes. Newspapers aren't necessarily the best way to deliver information in the modern age, she asserted.

"All of the things we were doing were important but we had to make some priority choices," she said. For more budget stories, see page 10.

No Cybersecurity Exceptions for OTAs

* The Defense Department has embraced other transaction authority agreements as a way to circumvent the Pentagon's traditional acquisition process but companies pursuing them will have to comply with new cybersecurity standards even if they pose a burden, said Katie Arrington, chief information security officer in the acquisition and sustainment office.

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification version 1.0 will force industry to up its game in protecting its data networks. The department is working on new regulations to include the CMMC rules.

Contracting officers have been notified that OTAs don't get a pass, she said. "They will be putting it as a technical requirement as they roll out the ... white papers," she added.

For more on the CMMC regulation, see page 20.

Hyten Wants to Channel Silicon Valley

* The Defense Department is going to change its process for building software --modeling the new structure after operations used in Silicon Valley, a top Pentagon official said.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten...