Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

Will Hurd, the Texas Republican who served in the House from 2015 to 2021 and became a leading voice in Congress on IT and security issues, said this week that he sees ongoing foreign-influence operations as a lasting concern for next month’s midterm elections in the United States. […]

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-NV, U.S. Senate

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., requested information on Oct. 17 from the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) about cyberattacks that targeted the U.S. aviation sector last week. […]

website

With the U.S. midterm elections just around the corner and security concerns running high, a new survey finds that three-quarters of local election websites are not using the .gov domain to help boost site security and engender a higher degree of user trust.   […]

CISA

Improving the cybersecurity of the water critical infrastructure sector, K-12 schools, and healthcare sector are among the top priorities for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), agency Director Jen Easterly said today during Mandiant’s mWISE conference in Washington. […]

Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and Frank Lucas, R-Okla., have sent a letter to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director, Arati Prabhakar, requesting details on how OSTP plans to implement new guidance that directs Federal agencies to make Federally-funded research publicly accessible. […]

General Services Administration GSA

A group of senators sent a letter to Robin Carnahan, administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), earlier this month requesting a progress update on the accessibility of Federal technology and public-facing websites for people with disabilities, and senior citizens. […]

After more than eight years of trying, Russia has yet to realize its strategic cyber war-fighting goals in Ukraine, a top Ukrainian government technology official said on Oct. 19 at Mandiant’s Worldwide Information Security Exchange event in Washington. […]

Chris Inglis

National Cyber Director (NCD) Chris Inglis today previewed some themes from the national cybersecurity strategy that he’s working on – and said the long-awaited strategy should be publishing within the next couple of months. […]

Cloud Computing Brainstorm 2019 - Sean Connelly

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program is helping Federal agencies to make progress on mandates in President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order to install endpoint detection and response (EDR) on their networks, a senior CISA official said. […]

General Services Administration GSA
CISA

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., asked Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly in an Oct. 14 letter for a rundown on how CISA is carrying out its outsized role as risk manager for about half of the U.S. critical infrastructure sectors designated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). […]

Pentagon Military Defense DoD

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is moving closer to completing its Thunderdome project – DISA’s zero trust security model – by the target date of January 2023, but the agency still faces the challenge of scaling it across Defense Department (DoD) networks, an agency official said. […]

Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., who is ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and committee member Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., are raising concerns over reported failures to remove equipment made by China-based Huawei from United States-based cellular communications networks despite the threat that Huawei gear poses to U.S. national security. […]

Rob Joyce
AI

A Federal judge on Oct. 14 granted final approval for the $63 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach, ending a seven-year legal battle over one of the Federal government’s largest publicly reported security failures. […]

AI

President Biden on Oct. 17 signed into law the Artificial Intelligence Training for the Acquisition Workforce Act, which aims to improve the Federal workforce’s understanding of AI and ensure its ethical and safe use. […]

President Biden

The Department of Education officially launched its formal online application for one-time student debt relief on Monday afternoon after President Biden announced that beta testing for the application handled more than eight million hits over the weekend. […]

The Federal government needs to move away from deterrence as its guiding strategy in cyberspace, and adopt a persistent security mindset instead, a U.S. Cyber Command official said today. […]

White House
Army

The U.S. Army last week updated its 2020 cloud plan to reinforce its objectives of digital modernization and integration of key services into one global cloud environment – cARMY – an Army spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]

DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking feedback from industry on a plan to staff its unified Network Operations and Security Center (NOSC) with contract employees skilled in network management and cybersecurity operations, according to a request for information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov. […]

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va. – who know better than many about national security risks – likes the recently enacted CHIPS Act both as an eventual cure for semiconductor supply chain disruptions, and as a way to create effective competition against suppliers from China that pose potential national security risks to the United States. […]

IRS
health

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