The General Services Administration this week awarded Valiant Solutions a $33 million contract to serve as the agency’s first line of enterprisewide defense against cyber attacks.
A Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone) certified small business, Valiant specializes in information security services commercially and in government, with experience deploying its services within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Labor and other agencies. Valiant earned GSA Schedule 70 recognition in March as a certified industry partner to provide services to agencies.
According to Valiant CEO Matt Raydo, his company has been working with GSA since 2008, which he said gives it a better understanding of the agency and its desires for consolidating its IT security.
In a blog post announcing the contract, GSA said it will work with Valiant to “to improve GSA’s security posture through real time security operations and proactive policy, training, and governance activities. These actions will improve the ability to prevent intrusion and loss of critical data present on GSA networks.”
Specifically, Raydo said in an email to FedScoop, “the scope of the project includes Program Management, Security Operations, Security Engineering, Information System Security and Policy and Compliance support. It is Valiant’s goal over the next 5 years to work closely with GSA leadership to further streamline and consolidate security activities.”
Key to this contract is not just preventing attacks from happening but also responding to the threats — both inside and outside the agency — properly, GSA’s blog post explained.
“As cyber attacks become more sophisticated and advanced persistent threats multiply, preventing attacks is only one step in creating a secure enterprise,” states the post, authored by GSA Communications Manager Cara Battaglini. “Just as important is how an agency responds to a cyber security incident. A key component of this task order will be providing the forensic services to carry out a full investigation of major security events and prevent attempted attacks from disrupting agency priorities.”
Valiant’s award comes about a year after GSA helped facilitate a blanket purchase agreement for the Department of Homeland Security with 17 contract teams to provide continuous diagnostics and mitigation to agencies throughout governments of all levels. Valiant was a subcontractor on that $6 billion award to help agencies at all government levels combat cyber threats in real time.
The GSA did not comment by publication time.
