SANS Sole Source Justification Signed (CoCO Signed).pdf

11505354

This individual Justification and Approval (J&A) authorizes the use of other than full and open competition procedures to obtain a new, firm fixed price, sole source contract. The contract will be with SANS Institute, Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) code 1HTA8, for the procurement of the SEC504 hacker incident training course and NetWars Tournament.

The United States Army (U.S. Army) requires the purchase of cyber security courses for the CYBER SHIELD exercise conducted from 14 to 19 SEP 2020. SEC504 Training (Hacker Tools, Techniques, Exploits, Incident Handling) and NetWars Tournament are 40 hour course and practical exercise for up to 30 personnel. The courses for the CYBER SHIELD 2020 exercise are to be held remotely/virtually due to COVID-19 safety concerns. The SANS Institute is the sole provider and sole proprietor of NetWars.

$366,309.00

The SANS SEC504 training and NetWars Tournament is essential training required to defend against foreign and domestic cyber-attacks.

SANS INSTITUTE is a cyber security company in the U.S. that specializes in threat hunting, network security monitoring, intrusion detection, incident handling, incident response, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, systems administration, and teaching. They are the only authorized training provider for the NetWars Tournament. Therefore, it is imperative that only SANS Institute train Cyber Soldiers on their proprietary training system.

National Guard Defensive Cyber Operations Elements (DCOEs) have trained using SANS Cyber Security training and NetWars for the last 4 exercises: Cyber Shield 2015-2019. Continuous training through SANS will ensure that knowledge base is maintained at the highest levels of proficiency and capability as National Guard Cyber Forces continue to utilize SANS training as part of their incident response training toolkit.

The mission support contracting offices and requiring units involved with the Cyber Shield exercises will continue to survey the market place to verify there are no other vendors that can provide SEC504 Cyber Security Courses and NetWar Tournament courses. Furthermore, we will continue to survey the market conditions to locate any new prospective vendors that should establish themselves as a responsible source to compete on similar acquisitions precluding the necessity for future sole source acquisition.

Market research was performed in accordance with the requirement of FAR Part 10, Market Research and FAR Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items, in order to determine the commercial availability of the required services. CPT Abbie Rebosky, 91st CYBER BDE, and CPT Ernest Rodriguez, CAARNG Logistics Officer, conducted historical, market and online research to ascertain commercial companies ability to conduct the SANS SEC504 course and NetWars Tournament. Our research identified no competitors that offered SEC504 comprehensive training and NetWars Tournament. The training course and NetWars Tournament is proprietary in nature and cannot be outsourced.

Based on this market research, SANS Institute was found to be the only source able to fulfill the requirement described in section 3.

SANS Institute

24 Aug

RODRIGUEZ.ERNEST.C

HARLES.1165439089

Digitally signed by

RODRIGUEZ.ERNEST.CHARLES.1165439

Date: 2020.06.18 12:49:42 -07'00'

ARAJ.NADER.SULIE

MAN.1170641317

Digitally signed by

ARAJ.NADER.SULIEMAN.1170641317

DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=USA, cn=ARAJ.NADER.SULIEMAN.1170641317 Date: 2020.06.25 10:55:03 -07'00'

EC504 & NetWars Course

24 Aug jamaal.k.valentine Text Box

JAMAAL K. VALENTINE, GS-13, DAC

Supervisory Contract Specialist (CoCO)