Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
IRS
FCC

The Federal Communications Commission on Oct. 27 voted to approve a notice of proposed rulemaking that aims to shore up the cybersecurity and operational readiness of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts. […]

The Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) is moving closer to releasing a new report with further cybersecurity recommendations, according to Rob Silvers, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) under secretary for policy. […]

USDA Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $53 million in modernization grants to tackle technology modernization goals for the agency’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children – otherwise known as WIC. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) technology education pilot program for veterans needs to create better outcome measures to evaluate how well the program is working, along with a plan for improvement, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]

military private sector government contract spending procurement-min 1
three-keys-to-cybersecurity

Private sector firms who supply the government with security technologies and the professionals that make them work are seeing this year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month and its theme – See Yourself in Cyber – as a call to jumpstart the skills training needed to fill the expanding deficit in the U.S. cybersecurity workforce. […]

Phil Fuster, vice president of sales at Proofpoint
Shane Barney USCIS

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) saved $26 million last year by automating their alert and response to threats against the agency’s data that is secured in the cloud, according to the USCIS chief information security officer (CISO). […]

Brian Conrad

Brian Conrad, acting director of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), pointed to the program’s service re-use progress over the past year at an Oct. 20 ATARC event, including a 60 percent jump in re-use by Federal agencies of approved cloud services over the past year. […]

Tech-sector trade group Alliance for Digital Innovation (ADI) sent a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services committees on Oct. 20 asking lawmakers to reconsider a provision in the forthcoming national defense policy bill that would require vendors to provide a software bill of materials (SBOM) on the technology they provide government agencies. […]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selected 16 people to participate in the agency’s independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), with the team beginning its research work on Oct. 24. […]

Kemba Walden, Principal Deputy National Cyber Director, Office of the National Cyber Director

Kemba Walden, principal deputy national cyber director in the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), today laid out what to expect from her office over time as it puts into place a national cybersecurity plan, what ONCD expects of the private sector, and what both can expect from each other. […]

White House

The White House announced on Oct. 26 that it will expand the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Cybersecurity Initiative to the chemical sector, as part of a larger effort to set cybersecurity baselines for critical infrastructure and protect infrastructure from cyber threats. […]

Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., have introduced new legislation that aims to counter the influence of foreign adversaries on the United States telecommunications infrastructure – and beyond the current sanctions on China-based equipment makers including Huawei and ZTE. […]

Red Hat Government Symposium

Earlier this month, U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) conducted a wide-ranging defensive cyberspace operation focused on sweeping for known malware, and intended to “highlight and enhance CYBERCOM’s interoperability with partners.” […]

AI

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is using its Innovation Lab to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to identify and alleviate burnout in the Federal workforce ranks due to the coronavirus pandemic, a GAO official said during an Oct. 5 event organized by Federal News Network. […]

AI

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking technical proposals for a new program that aims to develop automated approaches to conducting cybersecurity assessments on computer networks, according to an announcement posted to SAM.gov on Oct. 24. […]

Ann Dunkin

As Federal agencies and the private sector improve their uses of mobile technology, they must also improve security along with it, according to Ann Dunkin, chief information officer (CIO) at the Department of Energy (DoE). […]

OMB
Air Force

The United States Air Force is moving to shore up its end-user technology support functions following emergence of a “fix our computers” campaign that went viral earlier this year on Twitter and asserted that the Defense Department (DoD) was losing hundreds of thousands of employee hours annually due to computers that don’t work right. […]

EHR

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program may soon have another Federal agency coming on board, an agency official said this week. […]

The Surface Transportation Security Advisory Committee (STSAC) – which acts as an advisor to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) – has opened registrations for the public to attend its annual public meeting on Nov. 17 where the agenda features a variety of cybersecurity-related issues. […]

A key priority of the Biden-Harris Administration has been marketing Federal jobs to younger workers as nearly one-third of current civil servants get ready to age out of government.  While younger generations of workers figure to be more tech-savvy, the coming influx begs another   question in the age of cybersecurity: do Gen Z’ers and Millennials have good cyber hygiene while on the job? […]

cyber workforce

New research from (ISC)² sheds light on what it would take to close the longstanding cyber workforce shortage, and the answer is a big number. According to new research from the nonprofit, the cybersecurity profession needs to grow by 3.4 million people to close the global workforce gap. […]

DISA

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced on Oct. 24 the appointment of Army Senior Officer Gen. Joseph A. Papenfus as the newest assistant to the agency’s director. […]

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