Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

The Defense Department’s (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) component awarded a $94 million contract on July 5 to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) to finish the final phase of an agency project to create an armed air-launched drone system. […]

TSA

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator David Pekoske published the third edition of the agency’s Administrator’s Intent document last week, which outlines the agency’s planned actions through 2025 to achieve the vision and key technology and cyber objectives from TSA’s eight-year strategy released in 2018. […]

Telecom policy veteran Gigi Sohn – who came out on the short end of a bruising nomination battle to become a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this year – joined the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) last month as the group’s executive director, according to her LinkedIn page. […]

telework
health

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), released a new Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) on July 6 warning against Truebot malware variants. […]

USAJOBS, Federal workforce

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has launched two new job portals on USAJOBS to help streamline the job search for national security and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Federal government positions. […]

cybersecurity

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has one of the most difficult cybersecurity missions across the Federal government but lacks a workforce plan to ensure the agency can conduct critical cybersecurity workforce reviews, a government watchdog recently found. […]

With the Justice Department’s (DOJ) IT operations at the midpoint of executing a three-year IT strategic plan, we asked agency CIO Melinda Rogers a few weeks back for a run-down on progress with the plan so far, some of the advancements still in progress, and how the five pillars of the strategic plan are making a difference for the operations of DOJ and its 40 or so agency components. […]

AI

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) director sent a memo to agency chief human capitol officers (CHCO) today to help identify key skills and competencies required for positions related to AI within the Federal workforce. […]

Cyber workforce

Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., reintroduced the Accountability for Acting Officials Act last week – co-sponsored by nine other House Democrats, including Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. – that would make a series of changes with respect to the appointment, tenure, and qualifications of acting officials of executive agencies. The June 30 legislation aims to […]

TMF
DoD Pentagon Military

The Defense Department (DoD) said it plans to take a lengthy list of actions to improve internal data security protocols – including some “immediate” improvements on physical security and data sharing – following a 45-day review launched in April to examine how secret information is handled and managed by the military. […]

CMS

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB) found in its latest evaluation report that the board needs to clarify its cybersecurity incident response processes to effectively respond to cyber incidents at institutions that FRB supervises.   […]

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is failing to track and remediate thousands of critical vulnerabilities to its environmental and radiation data in a timely manner, according to a new watchdog report that claims the security deficiencies could put the EPA’s data at risk of being exploited by threat actors. […]

General Services Administration GSA
CISA

President Biden on July 3 announced his intent to nominate Henry Kerner as a Republican member of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), whose addition would bring the board’s roster to its full complement of three members. […]

Air Force

The United States Air Force has awarded Maxar a $20 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to boost the capabilities of its Red Wing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) platform through new algorithms and other advancements including AI tech. […]

VA, Veterans Affairs
CISA
Pentagon DoD Defense Military

The Department of Defense (DoD) has published a list of foreign entities engaged in what the Pentagon views as “problematic activity” – including interfering or influencing DoD-funded research and development (R&D) efforts at higher education institutions – in advance of additional restrictions that begin next year on funding academic research that does not guard against foreign influence.  […]

The White House released the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy almost 20 years to the month that the George W. Bush administration released its National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace in 2003. MeriTalk sat down with Simon Szykman, senior vice president for client growth at Maximus and a contributor to the 2003 strategy, to discuss the similarities and differences between the strategies and assess the work that still needs to be done to strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity. […]

DOD ICAM and IL5: Mission-Critical Cloud Security

The U.S. military is preparing to publish a new doctrine later this month that will help accelerate its joint warfighting and modernization efforts, and according to a top Pentagon official, a new Joint Futures organization could help push those efforts forward for the long term.  […]

DoD Pentagon Military

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., – chairwoman of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation – sent a letter to Pentagon officials requesting information on the cancellation of a $374 million contract aimed at replacing the agency’s Defense Travel System (DTS), according to a press release from the committee today. […]

GPS

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