The Homeland Security Department is building a contract vehicle of vendors able to manage its 17 unclassified security operations centers—the cybersecurity hubs for the government’s central cybersecurity agency.
The agency issued a request for information Wednesday outlining its tentative acquisition strategy and asking for feedback from industry on capabilities and approach to spinning up additional resources in times of crisis, such as during a large-scale cyberattack.
“The Department of Homeland Security has a complex and demanding mission,” the notice on FedBizOpps reads. “To assist in meeting that mission, DHS needs robust and effective information systems. It also needs to protect those systems from cyber threats posed by nation-states and criminal enterprises.”
The department currently operates 17 security centers, including the Enterprise Security Operations Center, or ESOC, that oversees and collects threat intelligence from the other component SOCs. Managing cybersecurity operations at that scope and level requires staffing 24/7/365, a requirement the department can’t meet at its current staffing levels.
All 17 SOCs are currently managed by contractors, with Homeland Security component offices generally acquiring their own services. The vehicle being contemplated in the RFI would centralize the pool of vendors and create a single set of core functions available to all SOCs.
Those core services will include “network monitoring and security event analysis, email security monitoring and analysis, computer security incident response and management, vulnerability assessment, security engineering, cyber intelligence support, intrusion analysis and continuity of operations for SOC services,” according to the RFI.
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