Raytheon Wins US Civilian Cyber Contract Worth $1 Billion

Tokolosh writes: Raytheon is a company well-known in military-industrial and political circles, but not so much for software, networking and cybersecurity. That has not stopped the DHS awarding it a $1 billion, five year contract to help more than 100 civilian agencies manage their computer security. Raytheon said DHS selected it to be the prime contractor and systems integrator for the agency's Network Security Deployment (NSD) division, and its National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS). The contract runs for five years, but some orders could be extended for up to an additional 24 months, it said. Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, said the company had invested over $3.5 billion in recent years to expand its cybersecurity capabilities. He said cybersecurity incidents had increased an average of 66 percent a year worldwide between 2009 and 2014. As you might expect, Raytheon spends heavily on political contributions and lobbying.

Comments

PHB Site

[avandesande]

If your curious

http://www.raytheoncyber.com/

Raytheon IS known for software

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really agree with the summary. I've always associated Raytheon with software. I'm a meteorologist. The US National Weather Service uses a software suite called AWIPS for many of their operations. AWIPS is created and maintained by Raytheon. I've always thought that, because my tax dollars pay Raytheon to do this, the software should be open source and publicly available. Sadly, that's not the case, and it's virtually impossible to learn to use the same software in many NWS offices without actually working for the NWS. Thankfully, AWIPS will be replaced by the (partly) open source AWIPS II. But I've always thought this contract with Raytheon was pretty shady and bad for taxpayers. As for why Raytheon got the contract rather than the NWS using GEMPAK (the standard for some of their national offices), it may well be the explanation given in the summary that lobbying won out.

This about project management, not security

[phayes]

Anyone claiming that because Raytheon isn't a well known name in software, networking, cyber security that this contract was awarded for cronyism, lobbying etc, has clearly never managed a large governmental project like this one is and knows nothing of how these projects are awarded. These projects are not looking for the prime contractor to be technically proficient in any of these technical fields but to have the best project management skills & to farm the technical parts out to subcontractors/suppliers.

That /. admins have promoted such a basic misunderstanding of what the issues are speaks to how far /. has fallen.