The Wrap: DISA Testing ‘Concierge AI’; DoDNet Migration Heating Up; CSRB Taking on China Hacks

Welcome to The Wrap for Monday, October 28!

From the newsroom at MeriTalk, it’s the quickest read in Federal tech news. Here’s what you need to know today:

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DISA Testing ‘Concierge AI’

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is moving forward with wider testing of its “Concierge AI” platform after piloting the platform on a smaller scale for the past year. That was the news today from Steve Wallace, director of emerging technology and chief technology officer at DISA, who told reporters at an agency conference in Towson, Md., that the clearance to begin wider testing “to the greater DISA team” came through about a week ago. What does the Concierge AI platform do? The platform aims to integrate data with AI and minimize friction for users to find and analyze the information they want. It draws data from controlled unclassified information settings and drops that information into a database where – with the help of large language models (LLMs) – users can pose questions and receive accurate answers. The platform’s initial pilot provided security personnel and users with “a level of comfort” in using LLMs in a government cloud environment at Impact Level 5, Wallace said.

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DoDNet Migration Heating Up

Meanwhile on the network front, the Defense Information Systems Agency is moving fast to migrate more new users to its modernized DoDNet network in the current fiscal year and into FY 2026. That was the top-line takeaway from Sharon Woods, the director of DISA’s J6 Endpoint Services and Global Service Center, who updated reporters at today’s conference. “We are weeks away from launching major activities for DoDNet,” Woods said, including “migrating six agencies [to DoDNet] beginning in FY2025, and another five agencies in FY2026.” The network now serves more than 32,000 users and workstations, including personnel from DISANet, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, and the Defense Technical Information Center. The migrated users for FY2025 will include the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Defense Contract Management Agency, and Defense Contract Audit Agency, among others.

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CSRB Taking on China Telco Hacks

The Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) has the recent China-sponsored hacks of U.S. telcos in its sights for investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told MeriTalk today. The agency was tight-lipped about the details, but said the board will “initiate a review of this incident at the appropriate time.” What is the CSRB due to probe? That mission is likely to include reported China-sponsored hacks of internal wiretapping systems – created by the carriers for the benefit of U.S. law enforcement authorities to conduct court-approved surveillance – at Verizon , AT&T and Lumen Technologies . Ultimate targets of the hacking campaign have included officials with both major presidential campaigns, news reports say. CSRB – which was created in 2022 to investigate big cyber incidents – already has a crowded dance card following a congressional request this summer to look into the CrowdStrike outage that temporarily disabled millions of computers running 微软 Windows.

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Leidos in Line for EHR Deal

Leidos looks to be on the receiving end for a United States Department of Defense (DoD) sole-source contract extension to act as the integrator of MHS Genesis, the Pentagon’s multi-billion dollar electronic health record (EHR) system. MHS Genesis, originally a 10-year, $4.3 billion contract with Leidos awarded in 2015, aims to share patient records and data with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)?Oracle Cerner EHR system. DoD?expanded?the contract in 2018 to about $5.5 billion to achieve “a single standard baseline solution” with the VA’s EHR and to incorporate the U.S. Coast Guard into the DoD EHR. According to a?notice?posted to SAM.gov on Oct. 18, DoD said it plans to award the contract to Leidos by July 2025. Also according to the notice, the Program Executive Office, Defense Healthcare Management Systems, said it wanted to wait to “openly compete the role of systems integrator” until the MHS Genesis architecture is migrated to the cloud to “resolve potential vulnerabilities.”

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Once again, let’s “call IT a day,” but we'll bring you more next week. Until then please check the MeriTalk breaking news website throughout the day for the latest on government IT people, process, and policy. And finally, please hit the news tip jar [with leads, breaking news, or simply your two cents] at [email protected].