Emerging Technology, Infrastructure
PR Newswire | July 13, 2023
Carbon management and accounting platform nZero will be tracking real-time 24/7 carbon-free electricity under the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Green Proving Ground (GPG) program as part of the Federal Government's quest to decarbonize federal buildings. The government agency recently announced that, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, it will invest $30 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to increase the sustainability of federal buildings by testing novel technologies through the GPG program. This marks the first year GSA is integrating carbon tracking software. nZero will be supporting the Biden-Harris Administration's larger initiative to advance clean energy tech offerings and establish net-zero federal buildings.
"GSA serves as a standard for federal building development across the country, and our carbon management and emissions tracking will complement the agency's ongoing work toward achieving net-zero federal buildings," said Josh Griffin, Chief Policy Officer and Co-Founder at nZero. "The opportunity to work with GSA and the GPG program as one of the first carbon accounting software to be evaluated under this program is an honor. We look forward to working toward a common goal of decarbonizing the built world through more transparent and accurate greenhouse gas accounting."
The GPG program works to advance GSA's goals of achieving net-zero emissions in federal buildings and creating clean energy jobs by evaluating American-made, emerging and sustainable technologies to help increase the deployment of federal electric vehicle supply equipment, protect air quality, reduce climate pollution, and enhance building performance. The GPG program leverages GSA's real estate portfolio to assess innovative building technologies in real-world settings.
"nZero is playing an important role in the Green Proving Ground program, as the Federal Government drives further innovation and clean energy initiatives across the country," said Robin Carnahan, Administrator of GSA. "In furtherance of the Federal Government's mandate to track these emissions, nZero's participation in the program will help GSA evaluate accurate and efficient carbon accounting as we push toward our ongoing goal of net-zero federal buildings."
With the additional funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, GSA is able to increase its evaluation and investment in technologies that will benefit its real estate portfolio. nZero's role as a selected technology pertains to greenhouse gas accounting, one of the GPG program's seven technology areas of focus. The seven areas include: Greenhouse Gas Accounting, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment, Germicidal Ultraviolet, Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings, High-Performance, Onsite Renewables, and Window Retrofit.
About nZero
nZero is a real-time carbon accounting and management platform that collects, analyzes and produces emissions and insights data to help NGOs, government agencies and organizations accelerate their journey to net zero. nZero utilizes a proprietary carbon data model to capture and automate all emission points from an organizations' operational footprint at the highest granularity possible and provides 24/7 analysis of scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Unlike other offerings that rely on third-party data and opaque averages, nZero's accurate, first-party, contextual data helps clients understand changes hour-by-hour, access metrics to reach climate goals and reduce operational and capital costs. nZero's data is audit-ready and compliant with all reporting criteria, mitigating risk and ensuring that organizations are prepared for new rules, regulations, and financial reporting demands. nZero recognition includes the 2022 "Leader in Sustainability" Award from the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN), the 2022 Sustainability Product of the Year Award from Business Intelligence Group, a TIME Magazine Best Inventions of 2022 recipient, as well as an honorable mention on Fast Company's 2022 World Changing Ideas List.
About GSA
GSA provides centralized procurement and shared services for the Federal Government, managing a nationwide real estate portfolio of nearly 370 million rentable square feet, overseeing approximately $75 billion in annual contracts, and delivering technology services that serve millions of people across dozens of federal agencies. GSA's mission is to deliver the best customer experience and value in real estate, acquisition, and technology services to the government and the American people.
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Cybersecurity
GlobeNewswire | August 31, 2023
Carahsoft Technology Corp., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®, Forescout Technologies, Inc., a global cybersecurity leader, and stackArmor, an advanced security and compliance solutions provider with a proven track record of delivering FedRAMP, DoD CC SRG, CMMC 2.0 and StateRAMP compliance acceleration, today announced a partnership with Google Public Sector to accelerate the availability of Forescout cybersecurity solutions to state, federal, and department of defense agencies.
As part of an ATO pilot program, specialist solution providers like stackArmor combine with Carahsoft’s proven public sector market services, to provide ISVs like Forescout with a holistic “accreditation to acquisition” solution.
"Google Public Sector is committed to working with partners like stackArmor and Carahsoft to accelerate the availability of Forescout cybersecurity solutions to state, federal, and Department of Defense agencies,” said Troy Bertram, Managing Director of Partners, Google Public Sector. “This pilot brings together partners with deep expertise and local knowledge to help ISVs accelerate the path to compliance and rapidly bring innovative technology to government agencies.”
The Forescout® Cloud, built on Google Cloud, is a unified SaaS platform for security visibility, risk, and operational management. It continuously discovers and analyzes all connected cyber assets, whether they are managed or unmanaged for IT, OT/ICS, IoMT, IoT and cloud, and is a foundation for Forescout solutions that address challenges related to risk and exposure management, and threat detection and response.
“We are delighted to be a partner of this ATO pilot program, which provides us with an accelerated pathway towards FedRAMP compliance and uniquely brings together engineering, compliance advisory and continuous monitoring services as well as market access solutions,” said Paul Kao, VP Product & Engineering, Forescout. “We selected stackArmor after a rigorous evaluation process and were impressed with their engineering expertise and ability to help us remove delays and friction from our aggressive accreditation roadmap.”
stackArmor rapidly delivers a dedicated Google Cloud Landing Zone with NIST-compliant security services, a complete FedRAMP ATO documentation package and post-ATO continuous monitoring. To ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive data, ThreatAlert® provides a standardized secure by design architecture that is deployed “in-boundary” to ensure the highest levels of security and the ability to meet stringent government cybersecurity requirements including FedRAMP Moderate, FedRAMP High, DOD Impact Level 4 and 5 among others.
“Reducing the time and cost of implementing NIST SP 800-53 based cybersecurity controls to achieve an ATO in compliance with FedRAMP, FISMA/RMF, DoD CC SRG and CMMC 2.0 requirements is a strategic necessity for commercial ISVs, critical infrastructure enterprises and public sector organizations, especially given the sharp rise in cybersecurity threats,” said Gaurav “GP” Pal, CEO and founder, stackArmor. “We are excited to expand our partnership with Carahsoft to bring our ThreatAlert® ATO Accelerator, which provides a secure by design cloud landing zone, defense in depth security services, OSCAL ready documentation package and continuous compliance automation to ISVs like Forescout, to accelerate the delivery of FedRAMP accredited cybersecurity services to government agencies.”
"Interest in FedRAMP-accredited cloud services has accelerated since the passage of the FedRAMP Authorization Act in December of last year, which opens new opportunities for expanding the portfolio of available accredited SaaS and PaaS offerings in the federal marketplace," said Craig P. Abod, Carahsoft President. "stackArmor’s ThreatAlert® ATO Accelerator combined with Carahsoft’s unique market access solutions provide a compelling accreditation-to-acquisition solution."
About Carahsoft
Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator® for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Open Source, Customer Experience and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. Visit us at www.carahsoft.com.
About Forescout
Forescout Technologies, Inc. a global cybersecurity leader, continuously identifies, protects and helps ensure the compliance of all managed and unmanaged connected cyber assets – IT, IoT, IoMT and OT. For more than 20 years, Fortune 100 organizations and government agencies have trusted Forescout to provide vendor-agnostic, automated cybersecurity at scale. The Forescout® Platform delivers comprehensive capabilities for network security, risk and exposure management, and extended detection and response. With seamless context sharing and workflow orchestration via ecosystem partners, it enables customers to more effectively manage cyber risk and mitigate threats. www.forescout.com
About stackArmor
stackArmor provides cloud migration, security and compliance engineering services for compliance-driven markets, including Public Sector, Government Agencies, Healthcare, Education, Space & Defense, Financial Services, and Non-profit organizations. stackArmor’s ThreatAlert® ATO Accelerator provides a unique “in-boundary” solution that helps organizations rapidly achieve FedRAMP, FISMA/RMF, DOD CC SRG and CMMC 2.0 among other government-driven cybersecurity compliance frameworks. Learn more by visiting https://stackArmor.com
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Emerging Technology, Cybersecurity
PR Newswire | August 18, 2023
Axiad, a leading provider of organization-wide passwordless orchestration, today announced a new Unified Credential Management System (UCMS) package calledPasswordless for Air Gapped and Critical Environmentsto meet the phishing-resistant requirements of The White House Executive Order (EO) 14028. This package brings passwordless authentication and end user self-service capabilities to air gapped and critical infrastructure environments that integrate Microsoft Security solutions. Overall, the package helps government agencies as well as critical infrastructure and defense industrial base (DIB) organizations maximize security and end-user acceptance and minimize security overhead.
In the United States, critical infrastructure systems continue to be a top target for cybercriminals. In fact,Microsoft reportedthat critical infrastructure cyberattacks doubled in 2022 from 20% to 40% of nation-state-sponsored attacks. Because of this, the U.S. government, via EO 14028 on improving the nation's cybersecurity, has mandated security measures, including strong passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA), for government agencies and is strongly recommending the use of this technology for critical infrastructure.
In response to this growing need, Axiad's Passwordless for Air Gapped and Critical Environments provides a seamless way for organizations to integrate government-grade, phishing-resistant passwordless authentication as well as key functional and operational support into on-premises air gapped environments.
The new package provides full interoperation with a range of Microsoft products – including Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services and Microsoft Certificate Authority – to ensure authentication is highly secure and consistent and customers get maximum value out of their existing environments. Additionally, it provides credential management and self-service credential enrollment and account recovery (CEAR), which are critical capabilities due to the high costs or the complete lack of on-site IT support in air gapped environments.
"Organizations with air gapped and critical infrastructure environments need passwordless authentication and a range of physical and platform authenticators to help prevent cyber-attacks," said Jerome Becquart, chief operating officer at Axiad. "With this new package, Axiad is the first company to provide all these elements plus the critical missing ingredient – self-service authentication management, including enrollment and account recovery – and bring them to the on-premises Microsoft ecosystem."
Axiad's Passwordless for Air Gapped and Critical Environments provides the following unique capabilities:
Strong Authentication:The package provides government-grade FIPS 140 validated passwordless authentication with the flexibility needed to accommodate the full range of needs of employees, contractors, vendors and suppliers. For example, it offers a range of passwordless options, including both physical (YubiKeys, smart cards, PIV cards, USB keys, etc.) and platform (virtual smart cards).
Powerful Self-Service Capabilities:Axiad AirLock, which provides help desk automation by eliminating temporary passwords, provides self-service credential enrollment, and Axiad MyCircle provides self-service account recovery within a trusted circle of colleagues rather than waiting for the help desk to respond – both of which help to increase operational efficiencies for frontline workers and reduce IT costs.
Ready Implementation:The package's architecture is made to operate in air gapped environments and to seamlessly interoperate with existing authentication and infrastructure investments without requiring upgrades. This package fully leverages and extends the life of Microsoft authentication (e.g., Microsoft Active Directory) and infrastructure (e.g., Microsoft Windows Server) investments.
"Axiad's integration with Microsoft empowers critical infrastructure, government and defense industrial base to easily upgrade their existing Microsoft on-premises infrastructure to become passwordless," said Ehud Itshaki, principal product manager at Microsoft. "With phishing-resistant, passwordless authentication, they can enhance their security posture and comply with the recent EO mandating phishing-resistant MFA – all while getting more out of their existing Microsoft authentication and infrastructure investments."
About Axiad
Axiad delivers organization-wide passwordless orchestration to secure people, machines, and interactions for enterprise and public sector organizations that must optimize their cybersecurity posture while navigating underlying IT complexity. The company's flagship product, Axiad Cloud, is a comprehensive, secure and integrated authentication platform that allows customers to move to a passwordless future without the friction and risk of fragmented solutions. Axiad supports the widest range of credentials in the industry including FIDO, mobile MFA, Windows Hello for Business, YubiKeys, smart cards, TPM and biometrics, and is trusted by public sector organizations and Fortune 500 companies across aerospace & defense, financial services, insurance, healthcare, oil & energy and more.
For more information visitaxiad.comand follow us onTwitterandLinkedIn.
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