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DoD's Own Cyber Monday Deal: Releasing DFARS Cyber Enhancement Guidance

Client Alert | 1 min read | 11.27.18

Just in time for the holidays, the Defense Department published final guidance to the DoD acquisition community that details strategies to enhance existing cybersecurity requirements for Covered Defense Information (CDI) provided by the DFARS Safeguarding Clause 252.204-7012. The DoD’s guidance contains two documents that clarify how DoD will communicate their cybersecurity expectations to contractors, including where those expectations exceed what the DFARS Safeguarding Clause requires:

  • Guidance for Reviewing System Security Plans (SSPs) outlines how the DoD expects to evaluate contractor SSPs, including the preferred method of meeting each NIST security control and the anticipated consequences of not yet having implemented those controls.
  • Guidance for Assessing Compliance and Enhancing Protections provides objectives that requiring activities can tailor to assess contractors’ safeguarding of CDI, including how to incorporate compliance with NIST SP 800-171 and supply chain management as evaluation criteria in solicitations.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.25.26

Twin Executive Orders Seek to Spur Quantum Leap in Technology and Cybersecurity

On June 22, 2026, President Trump signed two executive orders, “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks” (Quantum Security EO) and “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation” (Quantum Innovation EO), marking the most significant federal action on quantum technology since the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act of 2022, which directed agencies to harden their information systems against quantum-enabled hacking. The orders seek to speed the development of quantum computers, which are advanced processors that can calculate multiple possibilities simultaneously and thus solve problems exponentially faster than traditional computers. At the same time, the orders look to protect against the danger that quantum technology can “break” traditional encryption by easily decoding it. Of particular note for government contractors, the Quantum Security EO directs agencies to update federal acquisition regulations to require contractors by 2031 to adopt information processing standards that resist quantum-enabled codebreaking....

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