Vertical markets, Americas, Content

Booz Allen Wins $1.03 Billion U.S. Federal Government Cybersecurity Deal

Booz Allen, which has a Top 100 MSSP business arm, has earned a six year, $1.03 billion cybersecurity contract that spans six U.S. federal government agencies, the IT consulting giant said.

The sizable contract, which Booz called its second largest cybersecurity task order and its largest overall federal deal, positions the consultancy as the prime contractor under the government-wide Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense (DEFEND) program for Group D agencies.

CDM DEFEND is a new acquisition strategy that replaces the earlier CDM blanket purchase agreement. The contract is Booz’s second award under CDM DEFEND, following a Group B task order in February to provide $621 million of cybersecurity services and solutions to the Departments of Energy, Interior, Transportation, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs and the Office of Personnel Management.

Federal Agencies Coveraged

In this deal, Booz is tasked with reducing the federal government’s exposure to cyber attacks by developing and deploying next-generation cyber capabilities and solutions for Group D agencies, including:

  • General Services Administration (GSA)
  • Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
  • Social Security Administration (SSA)
  • Department of the Treasury (USDT)
  • United States Postal Service (USPS)

The award stems from a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the GSA, which jointly run CDM, and the Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM). It consists of a base year and five one-year options.

Booz: Deep Government Roots

Booz said it has been involved with DHS CDM initiatives for more than five years, over that time engaging with 13 federal agencies under contracts to address critical cyber capability gaps and fortify the security of networks, systems and data. Booz said it was the first integrator to partner with DHS under the multi-phase CDM program, which dates to 2012 and spans 60 federal civilian agencies.

Initially Booz designed, integrated, and deployed a data-driven cybersecurity stack that provided the 13 agencies with state-of-the-art visibility into their networks. To this point, the professional services company claims its solutions secure about 80 percent of the .gov ecosystem, including 4.1 million network addressable devices, more than 1.75 million users, some 19,700 sites, and 89 individual federal organizations.

“Cyber defense has become a race. And success means faster decisions and faster actions,” said Rob Allegar, a Booz Allen vice president and lead for the firm’s CDM work. “We design Booz Allen’s CDM solutions to help agency leaders understand their attack surface, detect evolving threats, make informed risk-based decisions, and act quickly. The goal is to do all of this as fast as possible, before vulnerabilities can be exploited.”

D. Howard Kass

D. Howard Kass is a contributing editor to MSSP Alert. He brings a career in journalism and market research to the role. He has served as CRN News Editor, Dataquest Channel Analyst, and West Coast Senior Contributing Editor at Channelnomics. As the CEO of The Viewpoint Group, he led groundbreaking market research.