Quick Hits

*** Elaine McCusker, the acting Defense Department comptroller and deputy undersecretary of defense submitted her resignation on June 16, effective on June 26. McCusker had been nominated to be comptroller on a permanent basis, but the nomination was pulled after it was revealed in the media that she had questioned decision about withholding funding to Ukraine – an issue at the heart of the impeachment case against President Donald Trump.

"Since joining the Department of Defense Elaine has worked tirelessly to ensure that our budgeting and audit processes give full value to the taxpayer while meeting the enormous security needs of our nation as well as the men and women who serve it. I am grateful for her dedication to public service and the contributions that she has made to the Department and wish her the very best in her future endeavors," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement.

*** The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is hosting its first ever bug bounty, GCN reports, inviting security researchers to participate in a "capture-the-flag" event to qualify for a competition to find vulnerabilities in hardware and firmware design. DARPA is getting help from the Defense Digital Service and crowdsource security firm Synack.