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On May 12, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a wide ranging Executive Order “On Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” which was in the works after the SolarWinds cyberattack and arrived soon after a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline Company that cut off fuel supply to most of the east coast of the United States. The Order places responsibility on both the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to require agencies to protect their data, provide for more information sharing of cyber-attacks, and establishes a cyber incident review group. The Order includes the following information and procedures relevant to all federal government contractors and subcontractors.
[co-author: Tawanna Lee]
On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued the long-expected
Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (“EO” or “Order”). The EO comes amidst a series of high-profile cyber-attacks on the Nation and its critical infrastructure, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) supply chain providers, and federal contractors, adding a heightened sense of urgency behind its implementation. In the related Fact Sheet the White House notes that “[r]ecent cybersecurity incidents such as SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and the Colonial Pipeline incident are a sobering reminder that U.S. public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity from both nation-state actors and cyber criminals.”
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.
File: B-419193.4; B-419193.5; B-419193.6
Date: April 15, 2021
Lars E. Anderson, Esq., Charlotte R. Rosen, Esq., and James P. Miller, Esq., Odin Feldman Pittleman PC, for the protester.
Timothy A. Furin, Esq., Ryan C. Bradel, Esq., Alan M. Apple, Esq., and Chelsea A. Padgett, Esq., Ward & Berry PLLC, for BCD Travel USA, LLC, the intervenor.
Jeremiah Strack, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency.
Jonathan L. Kang, Esq., and John Sorrenti, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
1. Challenges to the evaluation of the awardee’s technical quotation and past performance are denied where the protester’s arguments rely on definitions that are not found in the solicitation, and where the evaluations were reasonable and consistent with the solicitation criteria.
This month’s
Law360 bid protest spotlight examines three recent protest decisions, each offering a cautionary tale to offerors in the stages prior to contract award. The first,
HWI Gear
[i], emphasizes the requirement for small businesses undergoing an acquisition to recertify their size status on their pending proposals. In the next,
Perspecta
[ii], the Court of Federal Claims warns offerors of the dangers in sitting on allegations that a competitor has an organizational conflict of interest (OCI) until after award, at which point a protest might be dismissed as untimely. And lastly, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) decision in