The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, along with other natural disasters, forced the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to shift to remote work. In a new report, the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that the EPA was able to effectively plan a long-term solution to address remote access concerns while also transitioning to the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.

As the deadline to meet the requirements set in Memorandum-19-21 (M-19-21), some Federal agencies are struggling to meet the remaining requirements. However, during an FCW virtual summit on Sept. 21. the National Archives and Record Administration’s (NARA) chief record officer, Laurence Brewer, said the agency is aware of these challenges and is prepared to have those conversations, but there is currently no plan for a deadline extension.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has made progress in implementing a new electronic health records (EHR) system, but some challenges remain, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.

At the highest levels of the Federal government and the private sector, officials have recognized that cybersecurity is a national security issue. A series of policy and technical documents and high-level meetings this year have reinforced this notion. Chief among them is President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (EO), which outlines a wide-ranging and ambitious series of actions Federal agencies must take to better secure government operations. MeriTalk recently talked with Jim Richberg, field chief information security officer at cybersecurity firm Fortinet, who is uniquely qualified to assess the potential impact of the cybersecurity EO and the actions that agencies must take to realize its promise. Prior to joining Fortinet, Richberg was the senior federal executive focused on cyber intelligence within the U.S. intelligence community. He helped build the discipline of cyber threat intelligence analysis and is an innovator in measuring cyber performance, risk, and return on investment. 

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) now supports Rep. Jimmy Panetta’s, D-Ca., National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment that would create a Civilian Cyber Reserve at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), AFGE announced in a follow-up letter on Sept. 18.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Inspector General (IG) reported that the Postal Inspection Service sufficiently manages seized cryptocurrency. However, opportunities exist to improve its management of cryptocurrency used for investigative purposes.

A recent survey by OneSignal found that nearly 70 percent of parents found that digital communication methods with educators and administrators was either less time consuming or about the same as phone or in-person meetings.