If you’re ready to invest a couple hours of time and focus, then UniversIT is ready to deliver to you the latest information on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and military internet of things (IoMT) for government technology applications. Plus a few fringe benefits: you’ll never see a bill for our classes, and there’s no need to hike across campus in the summer heat. […]

The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences is dedicating $10 million in Federal funding for the creation of a research center that aims to address inequities in higher education online learning. […]

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said in its newly released annual Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) report for Fiscal Year 2020 that SBA’s  information security was “not effective” last year due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

The U.S. Air Force released a solicitation for proposals for its $4.79 billion NOVASTAR contract vehicle for services in research, development, and sustainment of hardware and software capabilities to support intelligence production requirements of the service branch, Department of Defense (DoD), and the intelligence community. […]

A Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that 3D printers pose a cybersecurity risk to the agency, after discovering DoD employees were not properly securing the IT systems used to develop 3D products, and were unaware the 3D printers even had IT systems that could be hacked. […]

Congresswomen Ayana Pressley, D-Mass., Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., on July 7 reintroduced legislation in the House to ban facial recognition use in most Federally funded public housing. […]

As Federal agencies deliberate how to reopen traditional offices and the policies they will need to keep employees safe, one thing is clear: gone are the days when the cubicle was the only option for government workers. The pandemic has forced Federal agencies to rethink telework policies, remote work, and even in-office setups. […]

White House national security staff took the Biden administration’s strategic thinking on ransomware prevention to the local government mayors this week, as administration advisors continued to work through a long list of policy items aimed at curbing the attacks and making them less profitable. […]

With President Biden’s cyber executive order (EO) guiding Federal agencies towards implementing zero trust architectures, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has already created a Zero Trust Playbook to help outline the change and create guidelines, the Corps’ CIO said today. […]

Republican members of Congress have written separate letters to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing concerns about the companies’ collection of data on students, among other issues. […]

After conducting its first bug bounty program last year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it is open sourcing the Finding Exploits to Thwart Tampering (FETT) Bug Bounty evaluation platform. […]

Former Federal CIO Suzette Kent, a champion of Federal IT modernization, has joined the Public Sector Advisory Board at Rubrik, a cloud data management company. […]

U.S. Air Force Chief Software Officer (CSO) Nicolas Chaillan this week emphasized the importance of a moving toward zero trust security architectures within the Department of Defense (DoD) – a process that DoD Acting CIO John Sherman has said is a top tech priority for the Pentagon. […]

The Department of Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plans on using its Pilot IRS program to release a multiple solution challenge to help digitize paper files. The agency will award multiple $7.5 million contracts based on which contractors offer the best solutions, according to a draft request for information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov. […]

Law enforcement agencies that use forensic algorithms to aid in criminal investigations face numerous challenges, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), including difficulty interpreting and communicating results, as well as addressing potential bias or misuse. […]

While most Federal agencies are at least dipping toes into the artificial intelligence (AI) pool, new MeriTalk research finds some are struggling to incorporate the technology more broadly into operations. […]

According to a joint advisory from the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), hackers from the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS) military unit – widely known as Fancy Bear or APT28 – utilized Kubernetes clusters to infiltrate targets in their global brute force campaign from mid-2019 through early 2021. […]

The White House and key Federal agencies have been working since July 2 to assist in the response to the Kaseya ransomware attack, as President Biden gets set to meet this week with an interagency group taking a longer look at the ransomware problem. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued its artificial intelligence (AI) accountability framework for Federal agencies and other entities to ensure responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable AI. […]

The Defense Department (DoD) said today it was taking steps to cancel its existing Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud services contract after three years of work that left the contract tied up in court, and the Pentagon without benefit from the $10 billion deal awarded to Microsoft. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) onboarded over 300 new cybersecurity employees, and made an additional 500 tentative job offers, during its 60-day Cybersecurity Workforce Sprint, exceeding the sprint’s original goal by 50 percent. […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking vendors to provide engineering and technical capabilities to help manage the bureau’s critical data centers across five U.S. locations. At the same time, the FBI’s Data Center Hardware and Operating Systems Section (DCHOSS) is developing a Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for IT Professional Engineering Services to support this effort.  […]

The SolarWinds software supply chain hack represented a seismic shift in cybersecurity awareness for public and private sector organizations. The attack, which compromised thousands of organizations, including at least nine Federal agencies – laid bare the reality that organizations may be compromised even if they don’t know it yet, and even if they are diligent about cybersecurity. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it has launched what it is describing as the “country’s largest effort to close the homework gap,” and has opened the application window for $7.17 billion of funding through the agency’s Emergency Connectivity Fund. […]

The recent Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity directs agencies to move to zero trust security architectures, in which no person or device is automatically trusted. However, many agencies were already well on their way to zero trust, said Drew Epperson, senior director of Federal engineering and chief architect for Palo Alto Networks Federal. In a new MeriTV interview, Epperson addresses the current state of zero trust in the Federal government and offers practical steps agencies can take to accelerate zero trust adoption. […]

In light of recent cyberattacks against Federal agencies, the Department of Defense (DoD) is increasing its requirements for private sector contractors to ensure they are adequately securing and protecting contractor and DoD data. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced an interagency agreement to coordinate the distribution of Federal broadband deployment funds. […]

Jen Easterly will be confirmed as the next director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) when the Senate reconvenes on July 12, according to Sen. Angus King, I-Maine. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a request for information (RFI) to identify potential vendors to support the secure and reliable operation of the dot-gov top-level domain (TLD). […]

Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., introduced bipartisan legislation on July 1 that would create a cyber training program for Federal employees, aimed to help protect the Federal government against cyberattacks and supply chain security vulnerabilities. […]