Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

In light of the proliferation of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, the Government Accountably Office (GAO) has added one new priority recommendation – to help regulate “blockchain-related risks” – to its list of recommendations for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). […]

Pentagon Military Defense DoD

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has elevated Adarryl Roberts from program executive officer to chief information officer, according to a LinkedIn post August 6. […]

Jen Easterly, CISA
White House

President Biden signed an executive order on August 9 that will give the Treasury Department the ability to block private-sector U.S. investments in China that involve hot-button technologies including artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and semiconductors and microelectronics. […]

Defense Information Systems Agency, DISA

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has assumed responsibility for the management and operations of the SharkSeer cyber defense tool previously managed by the National Security Agency (NSA), the agency announced on Monday. […]

Army

The National Finance Center (NFC) – a Federal shared service provider of payroll, human resources, and retirement services to more than 650,000 government employees – is suffering from a range of operational problems including woefully outdated IT infrastructure, and is “at risk without prompt action,” according to a report released this week by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). […]

Pentagon Military Defense DoD

The Defense Department’s (DoD) efforts to move from a highly networked legacy environment to a data-driven environment require a careful balance between modernizing network systems and meeting mission requirements, a senior Pentagon technology official explained this week. […]

White House

The Biden-Harris administration is launching a two-year competition that will leverage AI to protect the United States’ most important software – such as code that helps run the internet and critical infrastructure – senior White House officials announced at the opening of the Black Hat USA Conference in Las Vegas today. […]

cyber workforce

The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) has hired Daniel Ragsdale to serve as its deputy assistant director for workforce and education to help spearhead implementation of the White House’s brand-new National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy (NCWES). […]

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is asking for public feedback on the draft version of a major update to its voluntary Cybersecurity Framework, which has become something close to a de facto baseline standard for security efforts in government and the private sector since it was launched in 2014 as a guide for critical infrastructure sectors. […]

State Department

How do you attack two big challenges for Federal agencies under the President’s Management Agenda – improving both customer experience and cybersecurity – with just one set of pilot projects focused on better device management? A good person to ask for advice on that front is Dr. Kelly Fletcher, who took over as State Department […]

FEMA
IRS
DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is delaying the rollout of its Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure Provider Suite (ECLIPS), with plans to conduct a follow-up industry engagement event in October or November to discuss the status of the project. […]

Air Force

Alexis Bonnell, who late last month became the Air Force Research Laboratory’s first chief information officer and director of its new Digital Capabilities Directorate, is viewing her new duties with a “bias to action … that lets me take risk, be curious, and lean in.” […]

Cybersecurity technology provider CrowdStrike said in a report issued today that its Falcon OverWatch managed threat hunting unit saw a 40 percent year-over-year jump in “observed interaction intrusion volumes” for the year ended June 30. […]

FCC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted last week to launch a notice of inquiry to better understand non-Federal spectrum usage and identify new data sources and emerging technologies – such as AI – to accomplish that task in a cost-effective way. […]

Kids at computers hackers students education

Faced with increasing cyberattacks on K-12 schools, the Biden-Harris administration today unveiled several government actions to help bolster their cyber defenses, along with numerous commitments from private-sector organizations that aim for the same result. […]

White House

The White House is calling on Federal agencies to “aggressively execute” plans for Federal employees to spend more time in the office this fall after years of working from home, according to an email sent Friday by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and obtained by MeriTalk. […]

Cybersecurity

The deadline for the final draft by the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Council on a ruling to consolidate cybersecurity supply chain risk management requirements is approaching soon. The final ruling is expected to further permeate cybersecurity regulations across Federal procurement circles. […]

Army

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) outlined some of the leading practices that private sector organizations are using to create a range of “cyber-physical” products, and pointed to how government acquisition officials can learn from those practices to help frame changes in their own acquisition processes. […]

cybersecurity

In a new interview with MeriTalk, Brandon Iske, a principal solutions architect at identity platform provider Okta, and Bill Wells, a senior solutions architect at cloud provider Amazon Web Services (AWS), evaluate the successes and challenges that agencies are experiencing as they implement required identity protections and offer advice and best practices for agencies as they continue to plan and implement components of their zero trust architectures. […]

CISA

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today debuted its cyber plan for the next three years, noting that the agency’s planning document builds on the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy released earlier this year. […]

The Pentagon is a very large building that houses a lot of the authorities for the U.S. Military. It's big. This photo doesn't do it justice, but they're kinda rightly concerned about people flying drones around there.

The Pentagon’s top technology official is pushing defense agencies and components to use the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract for all future cloud acquisitions and top-secret cloud capabilities. […]

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