IT SECURITY THREAT ANALYSIS
THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT ONLY TO PRE-QUALIFY VENDORS. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. THIS IS NOT A FORMAL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL.
BACKGROUND:
The United States Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms (SAA or Senate) through the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for the Senate IT security. It is a part of the SAA's mission to provide secure and reliable network services to the U.S. Senate. The SAA IT Security Branch works to protect the security of U.S. Senate information and to maintain the secure operation of the U.S. Senate network infrastructure and its information technology resources.
The Senate has recently improved the network infrastructure to establish a more robust Cyber security capability. The IT Security Branch, with support from its Contractor staff, has been conducting Cyber security operations for the Senate Enterprise. The SAA is now seeking a Contractor to perform threat and intelligence analysis as a complementary effort to the Cyber Security Operations Center (SOC) activities.
REQUIREMENT:
The Cyber Threat analysis team is a newly developed team in the IT Security Branch focused solely on the analysis of threat/intelligence based products to maximize the ability of the IT Security Branch to perform pro-active Cyber Security operations. The SAA Cyber Threat analysis team requires support for its mission to leverage industry expertise, state of the art technology, tactics, techniques and procedures to better understand the Cyber adversary; stay informed of current vulnerabilities and exploits in the wild; propose mitigation strategies; determine likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited; and understand the capabilities of the Cyber adversary.
The SAA will evaluate contractors and their ability to establish a team to assist the SAA Cyber Threat analysis team in the performance of its tasks. The Contractor Cyber Threat Analysis Team will collaborate with government, commercial and private organizations to perform analysis on multi-source intelligence to promote a proactive, predictive and adaptive approach to Cyber security for the U.S. Senate. Additionally, this Team will be required to both consume threat data for analytics and produce the necessary counter-measures to deny, disrupt and degrade Cyber adversary actions. This Team will also provide metrics, reports and presentations when directed to advise leadership of Cyber adversary activities.
INSTRUCTIONS:
In responding to this SSN, the contractor shall:
1) Provide a detailed description of its approach to Cyber Threat analysis and what differentiates it within the Threat/Intelligence market space. Please include the following information, at a minimum:
a. Describe the product architecture and provide a representative diagram(s) if available, including:
• Methodology for collecting and analyzing threat intelligence and denying, disrupting and degrading Cyber adversaries;
• Staffing approach / process;
• Specific threat intelligence products/subscriptions being used;
• Specific deliverables being provided;
• Dependencies for success; and,
• Any other relevant information for the SAA to assess contractor capabilities.
2) Provide past performance experience and information for a minimum of three (3) contracts, each less than two (2) years old, that involve use of products and capabilities relevant to the Senate requirements (See REQUIREMENTS section above). The past performance references may include both prime and sub-contractor relevant to the mission and tasks described in the REQUIREMENTS section of this SSN. Please include the contract number, customer name and address, and a brief synopsis of work performed. The SAA will check references as necessary to evaluate relevancy of past performance.
3) Organizational information including your Dun and Bradstreet number and point of contact with telephone, fax, and e-mail address.
This Sources Sought Notice (SSN) is not a request for proposal and in no way obligates the Senate to award a contract. This sources sought synopsis contains the currently available information. This information may be subject to change at any time by the SAA. It shall be the responsibility of the Contractor to monitor the FBO site for any amendment to this Notice that may be issued by the SAA.
The information contained in this Notice will be the only information provided by the Senate during the Sources Sought process. All qualified sources should respond to this Sources Sought by submitting an information package in accordance with the instructions provided. Only Contractors responding to this sources sought notice and deemed qualified by the SAA may be requested to submit a proposal in response to a solicitation that may be issued. If suitable responses are received from qualified sources, the SAA anticipates release of a solicitation in Fiscal Year 2016. Neither the SAA nor the Senate will be responsible for any costs incurred by Contractors in the preparation of their responses to this Notice. Responses to this Notice are due to the SAA Procurement point of contact no later than January 22, 2016, at Noon EST, and shall be submitted electronically via email only to acquisitions@saa.senate.gov, attention Cora R. Carag. The subject line of the email message shall be SSN 2016-S-024 ITSEC_THREAT. No other method of transmittal will be accepted. The response shall not exceed fifteen (15) pages, excluding the cover sheet, table of contents and any drawing or diagram attachment/appendix and Past Performance information which shall not exceed five (5) pages each. Unnecessarily elaborate submissions are discouraged. Pages over the page limitation may be discarded. Access by the SAA to information in any files attached to the response is the responsibility of the submitting party. Neither the SAA nor the Senate will be responsible for any failure to access contractor's submitted information.
THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. THIS NOTICE CONSTITUTES THE ENTIRE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE AND IS THE ONLY INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE SENATE. ANY QUESTIONS ON THIS NOTICE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AND REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL NOT BE HONORED.
Corazon R. Carag, Procurement and Contracting Specialist, Email acquisitions@saa.senate.gov
