DISA to Roll Out Data Strategy for Fiscal Years 2025 - 2027

The Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) is reportedly gearing up to unveil an updated data strategy for fiscal years 2025 through 2027 in the upcoming months.

“With the previous one, we really wanted to get our hands or get our head around what data do we even have, what pockets do we have, what silos do we have? Now that we know what we have, we have the data catalog. Now we’re going to start doing more integration of data governance and policies in the backend of systems,” DISA's Chief Data Officer Caroline Kuharske revealed at AFCEA International’s TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore.

She further told reporters at Baltimore that the new data strategy will be a continuation of the existing iteration.

The forthcoming strategy, which is currently in development, aims to ensure that whenever a program application advances through various governance boards within the agency, it adheres to the data governance and policies established by DISA’s Chief Data Officer's office, Kuharske revealed.

Furthermore, the upcoming data strategy will incorporate efforts to align the capabilities of DISA’s emerging tech directorate which includes automating data normalization, enhancing security and registration for application programming interfaces (APIs) through automation, and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) for improved data reporting.

In April, DISA invited industry feedback on AI and machine learning (ML) models, tools, and services to enhance its Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO).

DISA is keen on investigating the application of AI-based methods to proactively identify unknown cyber threats using cyber sensor data and real-time threat intelligence.

The aim is to generate actionable, prioritized leads for cyber DCO analysts. Its request for information (RFI) seeks insights into leveraging commercial AI/ML solutions to bolster current DCO capabilities.