President Biden has nominated Tanya Bradsher to serve as deputy secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), according to a White House statement released on April 19. […]
The Federal government is facing a workforce crisis, especially with skilled technology talent. Retention, recruitment, and retirement issues are hindering hiring managers, who are looking to fill critical open roles in order to meet mission objectives and new Federal mandates. MeriTalk recently sat down with Craig McCullough, senior vice president for public sector at Pluralsight, a technology workforce development company, to discuss how the government can overcome the skills gap by creating talent and building a culture of learning within Federal agencies. […]
A panel of cyber experts gathered by the Atlantic Council last week discussed the outcomes of modern warfare and pointed to the likelihood of increased coordination between cyber and kinetic forces. […]
Security experts duked it out last week over the question of whether the United States should create a cyber force that would function on its own as a U.S. military service branch, distinct from the current structure of U.S. Cyber Command, which is one of 11 unified combatant commands of the Defense Department (DoD). […]
The Defense Department’s (DoD) U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is looking to advance its abilities in AI and cloud technology with the recent hiring of Andrew Moore, the former director of artificial intelligence at Google’s cloud business. […]
Federal agencies have increasingly made improvements in solving challenges the Government Accountability Office (GAO) features in its “High Risk” list, but more long-standing challenges still need to be addressed, U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said on April 20 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. […]
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to clarify some of its cybersecurity policies when it comes to the department’s acquisition programs. […]
If you’re heading to the RSA Conference in San Francisco in person, or even if you’re staying home in hopes of getting the latest cybersecurity intel from keynotes that will become available from the conference, here’s our curated run-down on what the MeriTalk newsroom is watching for news breakers. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that it is pausing all future deployments of its Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program – with the exception of one planned for 2024 – while it focuses on improvements at the five sites where the EHR system is currently deployed, as part of a “larger program reset.” […]
President Biden on Thursday announced his intent to nominate Cara Abercrombie as assistant secretary of defense for acquisition – a Pentagon post that has lacked a permanent leader since 2021. […]
If you’re already in the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) community and you don’t know about the GEOINT 2023 Symposium taking place May 21-24 in St. Louis, we’re happy to send out a rescue party to wherever you are trapped without comms gear… […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is seeking $425 million of fiscal year 2024 funding to put into motion a giant technology leap forward in how the agency analyzes the ever-growing volume of cybersecurity data that it needs to sift through to identify threats and vulnerabilities. […]
MeriTalk recently sat down with Gerald Caron, chief information officer (CIO) at the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) component agency, to talk about how he’s settling into his new post, and some key takeaways from his more than 20 years in Federal IT. […]
The IT landscape is rapidly evolving and can often present new and unknown challenges to chief information officers (CIOs). André Mendes, CIO at the Department of Commerce (DoC), joined the General Services Administration’s (GSA) High-Performance Computing Summit today to offer advice for CIOs as they navigate the new landscape. […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded a new hybrid contract to Rothe Ares Joint Venture – worth upwards of $814 million – to manage digital communication services, as well as information technology services. […]
Reps. Katie Porter, D-Calif., Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., reintroduced legislation on April 18 that would codify into law parts of President Biden’s 2021 executive order (EO) that directs Federal to make citizen-focused improvements to government services. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) this week announced that it will remove the COVID-19 governmentwide operating status on May 15 – meaning the pandemic will no longer drive how and where Federal employees work. […]
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told members of the Senate Finance Committee at an April 19 committee hearing that he the agency is aiming to complete an overhaul of its key Individual Master File by 2028. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today announced plans to develop and establish its own version of the Logging Made Easy (LME) tool – an open-source project that provides basic logging of security information on enrolled Windows devices. […]
Lawmakers have offered several proposals to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program, but VA officials and an official from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed their opposition on April 19 to many of those bills during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee legislative hearing. […]
Sometimes it takes a cataclysmic event to inspire change in how Federal agencies collaborate across departments, with other agencies, and with other outside partners. After the ferocity of the COVID-19 pandemic – which forced the Federal workforce to operate from different places – the government has increasingly adopted modern technologies to drive better connectivity and information sharing. […]
The Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity met with AI experts in the private sector today to understand how the Defense Department (DoD) could better leverage the emerging technology to improve warfighting – while also ensuring that cybersecurity comes baked into the weapons. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has unveiled the Federal government’s new digital front door with the newly redesigned USA.gov and USAGov en Español websites. […]
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III this week ordered a widescale review of how secret information is handled and managed by the military following the leak of dozens of highly sensitive Pentagon documents apparently at the hands of a low-level Massachusetts Air National Guard airman. […]
Department of Commerce (DoC) Secretary Gina Raimondo warned members of Congress this week that proposals by House Republicans to cut funding to fiscal year 2022 levels would be a “huge step backward” to U.S. national security, as well as creating a “dangerous” hit to U.S. technological leadership. […]
A new Government Accountably Office (GAO) report finds that the U.S. Coast Guard’s International Port Security Program has not consistently gathered information on the security abilities and characteristics of foreign ports that play vital roles in the U.S. supply chain. […]
The Pentagon announced this week that Leslie Beavers will take over as principal deputy CIO at the Defense Department (DoD), and begin at her new post on May 8. […]
The Department of Health and Human Security (HHS) has issued a draft of new cybersecurity resources to guide healthcare companies in their response to cyberattacks. […]
Ninety-five percent of Federal IT executives say their agencies are investing in in-house AI skills development – but in the past year, half of agencies had an AI project fail due to lack of in-house expertise, according to research from MeriTalk and Future Tech. […]
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published on April 17, warns about the potential of Synthetic Biology technology that can be used to create bioweapons in the future. […]