50 SCIFs To Be Deployed So More Companies Can do Business With Pentagon
“BREAKING DEFENSE” By Mark Pomerleau
“The Secure Space Network will deploy close to 50 ‘Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities’ around the nation to improve access to classified information for smaller businesses to do work with the military.”
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“Contractors will soon have more options to perform classified work for the Pentagon through the newly announced “Secure Space Network.”
The effort aims to provide access to physical, classified spaces, known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), by designing and deploying around 50 of them across the country.
“We must make it easier for capable companies to contribute at every level of the mission. Industry has identified access to classified environments as a major barrier, and the Secure Space Network directly addresses that challenge by opening the door to classified work for more companies,” James R. Mismash, Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Growth and Director of the Office of Small Business Programs, said in a release Thursday. “With strong partnership across the agency and support from Congress, this effort will strengthen our supplier base and help deliver the capabilities our warfighters need faster and at greater scale.”
Formally, a SCIF is can be any “area, room, group of rooms, buildings, or installation certified and accredited as meeting Director of National Intelligence security standards for the processing, storage, and/or discussion of sensitive compartmented information (SCI),” according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The rooms are reportedly built to defeat physical forced entry, audio eavesdropping and electronic spying, among other threats.
For many small businesses trying to do work with the military, access to classified information and SCIFs can be hard to come by. They are costly to establish and some companies just don’t have easy access to them. The intent of the Secure Space Network is to lower the barrier for more companies to do business with the Pentagon.
The release noted that the initial production will create a repeatable capability that can expand secure facilities as requirements grow. In addition, the intent is to build scalable production capacity to “surge” capability for rapidly increasing these accredited security workspaces.
The effort will be led by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment’s Office of Industrial Base Growth. The facilities can be placed at military installations, industry-focused locations such as APEX Accelerators, as well as other “mission-relevant” locations, the release said.
The department’s release was scant on meaningful details, however, eschewing the size of each SCIFs, how much the program has or the timeline.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mark Pomerleau covers networks and information warfare for Breaking Defense. Mark has extensive experience covering defense technology over the past 10 years reporting for C4ISRNET, Defense News and DefenseScoop prior. He earned a BS in political Science from Westfield State University. In his role as senior reporter for networks and information warfare, Mark covers cyber, electronic warfare, information operations, influence, intelligence, special operations, battlefield networks and data.
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