Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) employees were honored as winners of several 2021 Department of the Navy (DON) Information Technology (IT) Excellence Awards during the DON IT Conference, East Coast, May 24 in Norfolk, Virginia.
DON Chief Information Officer (CIO) Aaron Weis presented the awards, which recognize distinguished contributions in accelerating key objectives of the DON’s Information Superiority Vision (ISV) to Modernize, Innovate and Defend the Department’s IT infrastructure and capabilities, utilizing data and the workforce to advance the vision.
The Navy’s upcoming transition to a cloud-based infrastructure, which will expand use of Microsoft 365, usher in zero-trust principles and lead to greater cybersecurity and productivity, is just one of the examples of the vision being realized.
“We are celebrating the amazing work of these individuals and teams who are pushing the envelope in modernization, who are on the leading edge of innovation and who are changing the way people think about cyber defense,” said Weis. “They are setting the pace for the Department of Defense in these areas, and I thank all of our nominees for the solid, hard work they’ve put in toward the advancement of these efforts.”
NAVWAR Executive Director John Pope commended the winners for their achievements.
"These awards showcase the depth and breadth of technical talent we have across the command," said Pope. "From cloud computing to cybersecurity to model based systems engineering, our award winners and their teammates are leading the charge to modernize and defend the Navy's IT capabilities."
NAVWAR employees were recognized in several categories.
DON Cyberspace/ Information Technology Excellence “Person of the Year” Award
Michael Dovey, principal deputy director for Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic’s Cybersecurity Service Provider (CSSP) team, was named the DON Cyberspace/Information Technology Person of the Year.
Dovey, who also serves as deputy for defense, Defense Health Agency (DHA) Cyber Operations Center (CyOC), earned the award for his work leading cybersecurity professionals in countering existing and emerging threats to the DHA and the Military Health System (MHS).
Dovey’s efforts strengthened the CyOC operating construct as the single point of responsibility for defensive cyberspace operations across the DHA, spanning more than 1,400 facilities, including Navy and DoD hospitals/clinics, more than 200,000 endpoint devices and more than 500 systems in support of the MHS and its 9.5 million beneficiaries.
Information Technology Excellence “Defend” Award
NIWC Atlantic’s CSSP team earned the Information Technology Excellence “Defend” Award, which recognizes teams for defending government or military information from cyber threats.
The CSSP team successfully thwarted malicious cyberattacks, preventing catastrophic impact to the DHA, Navy and DoD force medical readiness. The team blocked nearly 13,000 malicious domains based on analysis of 135,841 indicators of compromise from October 2019 to September 2020.
In addition to defending health data and systems throughout the MHS, the CSSP team protected the Medical Community of Interest (Med-COI) network and the connected data, data centers, devices and systems.
Information Technology Excellence “Defend” Award
The Naval Network Warfare Command’s Cyber Engineering Team, made up of NIWC Atlantic and NIWC Pacific employees, also earned the Information Technology Excellence “Defend” Award for their efforts in developing and implementing the U.S. Navy’s Comply to Connect (C2C) Pathfinder solution.
The C2C Pathfinder accelerated modernization and integration of five cybersecurity tools and technologies across approximately 3,100 NMCI sites. In addition to continuous network monitoring and asset visibility, the Navy’s C2C system provides confirmation of asset configuration compliance and security controls prior to authorizing connection to network services.
Non-compliant and previously unidentified devices are automatically isolated to mitigate risk until auto-remediation is complete. In the past year, about 280,000 workstations were successfully identified and patched, while 47,000 non-compliant workstations were successfully quarantined. This segmentation restricts an adversary’s ability to traverse the network, protects access to sensitive data, and allows auto-remediation upon discovery.
Information Technology Excellence “Innovate” Award
A team led by Program Executive Office for Manpower, Logistics and Business Solutions (PEO MLB), which included members from NIWC Atlantic and U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM), received the Information Technology Excellence “Innovate” Award for their collaboration in developing the Command Individual Risk and Resiliency Assessment System (CIRRAS).
CIRRAS is a single, standardized, software-based tool that assesses service members’ well-being, empowering commanders to make informed decisions, potentially preventing adverse outcomes such as suicide.
The CIRRAS project team designed and developed the system using innovative software development methodology and cloud computing business practices.
Information Technology Excellence “Workforce” Award
Paul Walter, manager of NIWC Atlantic‘s Architecture, Requirements & Modeling (ARM), received the Information Technology Excellence “Workforce” Award for his contributions as the Technology Focus Area Champion for Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).
Walter champions efforts to advance MBSE and Digital Engineering (DE) across NIWC Atlantic, NAVWAR and the Navy. He leads a diverse team that tracks more than 20 metrics measuring the command’s progress toward digital engineering transformation.
In the spring of 2020, he launched an MBSE challenge in which NIWC Atlantic issued a problem statement and three teams competed to showcase a different approach in using MBSE to solve the problem. In the fall of 2020, that challenge was expanded, eliciting problem statements not only from teams within the command, but also from external sponsors.
Information Technology Excellence “Modernize” Award
The Cloud Native Secure Cloud Computing Architecture (CN-SCCA) Team earned the Information Technology Excellence “Modernize” Award. Led by the Program Executive Office for Manpower, Logistics and Business Solutions (PEO MLB), the CN-SCCA Team included personnel from NAVWAR Headquarters, NIWC Atlantic, NIWC Pacific, PEO Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) and the Sea Warrior Program (PMW 240).
The CN-SCCA Team was recognized for applying innovative concepts to deliver cloud-native security as a service architecture. The team went from concept to working code in less than 90 days, directly supporting the Chief of Naval Personnel’s MyNavy HR strategy of Digital Transformation. The team’s efforts provided a rapidly scalable zero-trust architecture that can be deployed in a matter of minutes, allowing mission owners to harness the power of the Cloud. Through their work, the team decreased code deployment times by 90%, increased agility by 500% and realized cost savings of nearly $30 million.
To view a full list of the DON IT Excellence Award winners, visit https://www.doncio.navy.mil/%28rjn5fqykzonl22f4q40cyj45%29/CHIPS/ArticleDetails.aspx?ID=14688.
About NAVWAR:
NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 civilian, active duty and reserve professionals located around the world.
Date Taken: | 06.11.2021 |
Date Posted: | 06.11.2021 14:53 |
Story ID: | 398712 |
Location: | CHARLESTON , SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
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