U.S. Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency Supports Contract Security Classification in XML and JSON

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) is the federal government’s largest counterintelligence and security agency within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

DCSA serves over 100 federal entities, oversees 10,000 cleared companies, and conducts approximately two million background investigations each year.

DCSA is dedicated to protecting America’s trusted workforce and trusted workspaces – real and virtual. The agency administers the National Industrial Security Program (NISP) Contract Classification System (NCCS). The DoD Contract Security Classification Specification, or DD‐254, provides security classification guidance and requirements to cleared contractors.

DD‐254 defines the requirements to safeguard classified information and assets. Modernizing the DD‐254 was a critical step in the fight against adversaries stealing technology at an unprecedented rate.

The model’s semantic content was published in NIEM’s version 4.1 release. DCSA published the NIEM‐conformant IEPD supporting the exchange of DD‐254 in both XML and JSON in 2019.

DCSA is currently updating the Conceptual Data Model’s semantic content in order to continue to improve information sharing across the DCSA enterprise, and within the broader DoD, Federal, Industry, and Intelligence communities.