VA inks $50M contract to improve audit readiness

As the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) gears up for its annual Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) audit, it has awarded a $50 million contract to ASM Research to bolster its Continuous Readiness in Information Security Program (CRISP), according to Fedscoop report.

The VA, which has failed its FISMA audit for the past 16 years, recently appointed Dan Galik as senior executive of CRISP and charged him with defining the focus of CRISP and preside over a significant swelling in expertise and technical support, the report said.

Galik already has taken a page from the State Department by attempting to develop a scorecard for each of the VA's 150 medical centers and 59 Veterans Benefits Administration locations to measure the security readiness of each facility and keep them audit-ready year round.