Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United States
Capabilities for Cyber Resiliency
Agency:
Department of the Air Force
Official Address:
26 Electronic Parkway Rome NY 13441-4514
Zip Code:
13441-4514
Contact:
Gail E. Marsh, Contracting Officer, Phone 315-330-7518, Email Gail.Marsh@us.af.mil – Jeff DeMatteis, BAA Manager, Phone 315-330-7132, Email afrl.riga.baa@us.af.mil
Link:
Date Posted:
17/07/2018
Classification:
A
Contract Description:
AMENDMENT 2 to BAA FA8750-18-S-7002
The purpose of this amendment is to modify:
1) PART I – Overview Information: Revised Submission Date information
2) PART II – Full Text Announcement is modified as follows:
a. SECTION I – Technology Requirements Description: Two new focus areas are added
b. SECTION IV – Applications and Submission Information: Added a submission date for the new focus areas and revised the FY20, FY21, & FY22 submission dates
No other changes have been made.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES:
1) PART I – OVERVIEW INFORMATION. The first two paragraphs are deleted in their entirety and replaced with the following:
This announcement is for an Open, 2 Step BAA which is open and effective until 30 Sep 2022. Only white papers will be accepted as initial submissions; formal proposals will be accepted by invitation only. While white papers will be considered if received prior to 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on 30 Sep 2022, the following submission dates are suggested to best align with projected funding:
FY18 – 26 Jan 2018
FY19 – 31 Aug 2018 – Submission Date for the two new focus area ONLY. All other white papers should be submitted following the stated schedule below.
FY20 – 30 Sep 2019
FY21 – 30 Sep 2020
FY22 – 30 Sep 2021
Offerors should monitor the Federal Business Opportunities website at in the event this announcement is amended.
2) PART II – FULL TEXT ANNOUNCEMENT:
a) SECTION I, Technology Requirements Descriptions is amended to add two new focus areas. Please note each area has a specific point of contact for any technical questions.
1) FY19-FY22 FOCUS AREA: NOVA
Background: Air Force systems and systems-of-systems are too complex for human experts to analyze and fully assess in operationally relevant timeframes. As such, vulnerability assessments (VA) are insufficient, even when conducted by cyber experts, because they do not scale to meet the enormity of the cybersecurity challenge facing the Air Force. State of the art automated tools have made great advances for software analysis, but support for hardware, embedded systems, and firmware still lag behind. VA of cyber physical systems and embedded systems have unique challenges due to the hardware and timing requirements.
Potential offerors should demonstrate an understanding of previous work in this area, such as the “MACE: Model-inference-Assisted Concolic Exploration for Protocol and Vulnerability Discovery” paper that was published in the 2011 USENIX Security Symposium.
Objective: The objective of the NOVA program is to develop an automated cyber VA prototype that targets embedded systems and can scale up to systems-of-systems.
The research has three main tasks:
A. Demonstrate the automated cyber VA proof of concept on a software AF representative system.
B. Further develop the Task 1 proof of concept and analyze it on a more complex AF system that may include embedded systems, firmware, and/or hardware.
C. Demonstrate operational feasibility of NOVA prototype on a real-time embedded system.
Questions regarding this focus area can be directed to:
Jeff DeMatteis
(315) 330-7132
jeffrey.dematteis@us.af.mil
2) FY19-FY22 FOCUS AREA: PREDICTIVE CONSEQUENCE MODELING & ANALYSIS
Background: The process to conduct vulnerability assessments is highly manual and requires substantial amount of unique subject matter expertise.
Objective: The Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with Headquarters Air Force/A4CF and the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, is seeking innovative technology concepts and prototypes to enable thorough and scalable vulnerability assessments of Air Force critical infrastructure systems, as required by the 2017 NDAA, Section 1650.
Of particular interest to this solicitation are technologies and concepts that focus on:
A. Automated identification of disparate control systems and the relationships and dependencies between those control systems, cyber/network systems, physical infrastructure, and mission requirements
B. Application of machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, etc., to reduce manual human machine interface analysis requirements
C. Ability for non-experts to rapidly tailor prototypes for use in different types of networks and missions
Expected contract awards for Focus Area 2 ONLY are between $250K and $1M, with periods of performance of up to 2 years. Strong proposers will include plans for demonstrable prototype deliverables early in the period of performance and plan to incorporate the results of field trials in to their research and development activities. Use of Agile, DevOps, or other development methodologies that regularly incorporates user feedback is encouraged. Procurement of commercially available tools and technologies are out of scope of this focus area, however novel applications of commercial technologies that achieve the goals of this focus area may be considered.
Questions regarding this focus area can be directed to:
David Ferris
(315) 330-4408
david.ferris.3@us.af.mil
Alex Aved
(315) 330-4320
alexander.aved@us.af.mil
b) SECTION IV, “Applications and Submission Information, Paragraph 1, “Submission Dates and Times”, is deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:
1. SUBMISSION DATES AND TIMES:
It is recommended that white papers be received by 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on the following dates to maximize the possibility of award:
FY18 – 26 Jan 2018
FY19 – 31 Aug 2018 – Submission Date for the two new focus area ONLY. All other white papers should be submitted following the stated schedule below.
FY20 – 30 Sep 2019
FY21 – 30 Sep 2020
FY22 – 30 Sep 2021
White papers will be accepted until 6:00 PM EST on 30 Sept 2022, but it is less likely that funding will be available in each respective fiscal year after the dates cited. This BAA will close on 30 Sept 2022.
All offerors submitting white papers will receive notification of their evaluation results within 45 days of submission. Offerors should email the TPOC and the Contracting Officer listed in Section VII, for status of their white paper(s) after 45 days, if no such correspondence has been received.
Sol Number:
FA8750-18-S-7002
