State Department is looking for tools to manage its global supply chain risk
The State Department is faced with a pressing challenge: It wants to better understand its supply chain of IT vendors and be able to rapidly discover or anticipate risks to its networks.
Essentially, the department wants to maximize its confidence that its supply chain is safe from the bad guys, according to a new request for information published Monday. It calls for existing market capabilities that can help the department better monitor its supply chain and react to threats.
“Through access to and analysis of available sources, the information provided by the industry SCRM (Supply Chain Risk Management) tool to the Department of State (DOS) customer will provide DOS with breaking or anticipatory information, regarding specifically identified subject matters, situations, and geographic areas around the world,” says the RFI. It also suggests a solution would need to “easily integrate proprietary internal Government data.”
Currently, State monitors the IT supply chain it depends on to support its mission of American diplomacy across the globe. But in a new tool, the department would hope to “obtain, maintain, and retain total situational awareness of global supply chain related events before, during, and after they unfold” and “quickly verify or validate the credibility of a source, author, and online information” as quickly and easily as possible.
The security of its supply chain is a topic that stays on the top of the State Department’s mind. In July 2019, the department moved forward with a $2 billion global supply chain security contract awarded to General Dynamics Information Technology.
