Air Force Only Service to Develop Cybersecurity Requirements for Weapon Systems Contracts, GAO Says gorodenkoff/iStock
email March 9, 2021
The audit found the Defense Department has improved weapon systems cybersecurity in recent years, but detailed requirements must make it into contracts.
Despite the Defense Department’s ongoing efforts to build networked weapon systems heavily dependent on software and information technologies, the military service branches have not all issued clear guidance describing how acquisition officials should incorporate cybersecurity requirements into contracts for these systems.
Of the four services, the Air Force is the only branch to have issued servicewide guidance for defining and incorporating cybersecurity requirements into contracts, according to a recent Government Accountability Office audit. The report builds on another audit from 2018 when GAO found DOD was in the early stages of understanding how