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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

International partners want in on Pentagon’s cybersecurity standards

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship Cyber Security

Comments: 0

Following the release of the first version of new cybersecurity standards for contractors bidding on programs, the Department of Defense is focusing on international adoption of the framework.

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) 1.0, released in January, is a tiered cybersecurity framework that grades companies on a scale of one to five based on the level of classification and security that necessary for the work they are performing.

It was designed not only to set a level playing field for contractors, but also to increase the cybersecurity of companies that possess sensitive secrets tied to the Pentagon programs they work on.

“The CMMC team is currently working with multiple countries including Canada, the U.K., Denmark, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Sweden and Poland as well as the EU cybersecurity body,” Ellen Lord, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said March 3 during a presentation at WEST 2020 in San Diego.

She added that these counties and groups are asking whether or not they can adopt the CMMC for their own use.

The United States, its allies and partners find themselves involved in a daily high stakes information warfare battle against sophisticated actors such as China and Russia, which have discovered that defense companies that support the military are juicy targets.

CMMC’s point person believes this framework is bigger than just the U.S. defense industrial base.

“I see it being adopted by more than just us," Katie Arrington, chief information security officer for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, told Fifth Domain in February. "I definitely see the international side heavy in 2020 and 2021. Our five eye partners are like ‘hey we’re here with you.’ The EU already has a cyber standard. So I think that there will be a lot more international cooperation on this.”

 

Photo: Companies and military leadership visit Cyber Shield 19 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana for collective training and technical assessment with industry partners. The Pentagon recently released the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) 1.0, which grades companies based on the level of classification and security that necessary for the work they are performing.

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