Leading technology and security companies are banding together to share tools and products to better guard against cyberattacks, saying their security teams are spending more time correlating a blitz of unintegrated data than detecting and responding to threats. […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has named David Updike deputy chief information officer (CIO) and director of the agency’s Office of Information Technology Operations (OITO), according to his LinkedIn. […]
Legislation recently introduced in the Senate aims to create a Federal grant system to help fund the construction of new broadband networks in parts of the country that either don’t have much broadband service currently available or that have service speeds of less than 100 megabits per second (Mbps) upload and 20 Mbps download. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made further funding moves to help close the “homework gap” by committing nearly $68 million in two new funding rounds through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP). […]
A senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) official provided an update this week on agency-level activity in their migration toward zero trust security architectures mandated by President Biden’s 2021 cybersecurity executive order and subsequent guidance documents issued by CISA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a solicitation for Hack DHS – a multi-year bug bounty program – to procure services in support of the program going into the future and carrying a contract value of up to $43 million. […]
The United States Army said in a recent solicitation that it’s interested in engineering services for a project to provide soldiers with integrated, latest-generation technologies for training and combat purposes. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Aug. 10 released a new cyber toolkit to help state and local election officials improve the cybersecurity and resilience of their infrastructure ahead of the midterm elections in November. […]
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and subcommittee leaders sent letters on August 10 to five agencies inquiring about their progress in addressing the Apache Log4j vulnerability. […]
A new report from BlackBerry and Corvus Insurance finds that many businesses will struggle to bear the financial costs of ransomware attacks that are not already covered by their insurance companies, and that most of the businesses surveyed believe government should help victims recover from attacks that are linked to nation-states. […]
The cultural and mindset shifts required to advance the migration by Federal agencies to zero trust security architectures are proving to be among the more stubborn areas of change in that sweeping effort, according to Angel Phaneuf, Chief Information Security Officer, at the U.S. Army Software Factory. […]
Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) from 2018 to 2020, said today that his vision for the Federal government’s next leap forward on the technology front involves creating a new “U.S. Digital Agency” that would combine elements of CISA and several other existing agencies to create an organization “focused on empowering better digital risk management services.” […]
Cori Zarek will join the United States Digital Service (USDS) as deputy administrator later this month, she announced in a blog post today. […]
The rise in the number of students who opt for online higher education programs has led colleges contracting with third-party companies – called online program managers (OPM) – to help develop and deliver their online programs. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a new report that the Department of Education (DoE) needs to strengthen how it monitors the arrangements between OPMs and higher education institutions. […]
A new report from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency is not effectively managing or coordinating its identity, credential, and access management (ICAM) program, and because of that is leaving information vulnerable to cyber intrusions. […]
The Federal government’s march toward zero trust security architectures is well underway with guidance documents from several agencies. And while that guidance is crucial, Federal agencies cannot confine themselves only to the practices described in them, Federal experts said during an ATARC event on August 9. […]
Several Federal agencies that have banded together to study ways to improve financial management policies and practices have released a new simulation tool that aims to illustrate concepts for improving identity verification and potentially reduce improper payments. […]
MeriTalk spoke with Frank Dimina, senior vice president of Americas and public sector at Splunk, about the value of log data and how agencies can facilitate collection and analysis. […]
The Inflation Reduction Act winding its way through Congress contains a massive infusion of funds for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including $4.8 billion that the bill’s authors hope will help to rebuild the agency’s antiquated technology systems. […]
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued an alert on August 1 warning of vulnerabilities in encoder/decoder devices for the agency’s U.S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) that could allow hackers to send fake alerts over TV, radio, and cable networks. […]
The Treasury Department sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash on August 8, saying the service has been used to launder over $7 billion worth of virtual currency. […]
Mark Hakun, Deputy CISO at the Department of Defense (DoD), retired late last month after 34 years of working in both military and Federal civilian capacities, according to a LinkedIn posting by John Sherman, chief information officer at DoD. […]
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) on August 8 released a new report for the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on current and potential sources of state death data used by Federal agencies for program administration and payment integrity, and pointing to ways for better government cooperation in the sharing of that data. […]
Federal experts today agreed that while the FITARA Scorecard serves as a useful tool for agencies to track IT-related performance, many agencies struggle with funding to make meaningful progress on some FITARA grading categories. […]
Sheena Burrell has been appointed the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), she announced on her Linked In page. […]
President Biden today signed the Chips and Science Act, after the legislation was approved by both the House and Senate late last month. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched the “Your Home, Your Internet” pilot program designed to raise awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) among households receiving Federal housing assistance. […]
In a sources sought notice (SSN), the IRS is seeking to improve the security posture of Federal tax information (FTI) and optimize processes to reduce costs and minimize risk to FTI in possession of agency partners. […]
Federal employees’ salaries lag 22.47 percent behind the private sector, according to a new report from the Federal Salary Council. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) is failing to track the continued progress of the military’s development of Global Positioning System (GPS) alternatives and lacks key information to make decisions on funding those initiatives, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The GAO report – published last week – explained that the U.S. Air Force’s […]