Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

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. […]

The Department of Education and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) need to do better in coordinating efforts to aid K-12 schools in cybersecurity, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]

Federal money spending government

It’s no secret the Federal government can’t compete with the private sector when it comes to pay for many job classifications. But Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Kiran Ahuja said this week that Federal agencies often compete with themselves when it comes to attracting talent, and OPM is looking into a Special Salary Rate to even the playing field between agencies. […]

Department of Commerce

The Commerce Department has appointed 16 experts from both the public and private sector to its newly created Internet of Things Advisory Board (IoTAB), the agency said in an Oct. 24  press release. […]

CISA

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a new Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) on Oct. 21 warning about ransomware attacks by the Daixin Team hacking group. The advisory says the Daixin Team has been targeting U.S. healthcare organizations […]

Arati Prabhaker, who took over as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) earlier this month, late last week outlined several mindset and policy shifts that she said are necessary to meet technology challenges facing the United States. […]

Ten months after President Biden released his executive order for government to improve customer experience, a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) argues that Federal agencies are “still doing a poor job of measuring satisfaction, and they are conspicuously lagging in offering digital services.” […]

Robin Carnahan

As telework and hybrid work have become part of the new normal for the Federal government, General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Robin Carnahan said her agency is rethinking the use of physical building space and will be rolling out coworking spaces for agencies to test in November. […]

Federal money spending government

The Department of Education’s one-time student debt relief application appears to be holding up nicely against website traffic during its first week after completing beta testing – with 22 million people using the site since then. That figure represents more than half of the universe of borrowers eligible to get student debt relief. […]

CISA

Concerns over Russian-sponsored attacks on the United States midterm elections have grown in the months leading up to next month’s contests, but the prospect of actual attack are less concerning than the perception that possible attacks create, according to Brian Liston, senior threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future. […]

VA

Keith De Silva has been promoted to chief of staff within the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Information Security (OIS), according to his LinkedIn page. […]

cybersecurity

Today, everyone is talking about resilience, but achieving it can seem easier said than done. Security is an essential component of this mission-critical capability. In a recent interview with MeriTalk, Andy Stewart, senior national security and government strategist at Cisco, broke down security resilience into five dimensions. Stewart, who previously served as the assistant chief of staff for operations and maritime operations center director at fleet cyber command, U.S. Navy 10th Fleet, also discussed the role of zero trust in achieving resilience. […]

Electronic Records
GSA

The Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) has made some progress in its Next Gen program since it first launched in 2017, but ongoing scheduling delays pose significant challenges to those modernization efforts, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. […]

Happy Employee

Federal cloud experts from the Department of Justice (DoJ) said this week that while government policy mandates for zero trust migration and cloud adoption are key to advancing IT modernization and security, they should also be paired with funding in order to help agencies get the job done. […]

Categories