The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is calling on the agency to address its slow progress in improving its cybersecurity posture, but the VA said a lack of funding causes the agency to lose high-quality IT personnel. […]
As the Federal government works through the rulemaking process for the recently signed Incident Reporting legislation that originated in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, witnesses for that same committee today stressed the need for unity among both reporting avenues and standardization of data to help operationalize the data. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has added unemployment insurance (UI) fraud to its list of “high risk” areas for the Federal government, and has tasked the Department of Labor (DOL) – which provides funding and assistance to states to run their UI programs – with finding a fix to the problem. […]
In today’s edition of Countdown to MerITocracy, we’re taking a look at what may change for the better in the near-term U.S. outlook – how about having the government help recreate the U.S. semiconductor sector that mostly drifted overseas a generation ago – plus billions in Federal R&D funding that stands ready to be put to work in pending legislation in Congress. That money would flow through the National Science Foundation – whose director Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan is a featured speaker at MerITocracy. […]
As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is in the process of updating its Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), it plans to hold a series of workshops and release at least one more draft for public comment before releasing CSF 2.0, according to a NIST blog. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) along with the FBI and other international enforcement agencies have announced the seizure of three different internet domains selling malicious software and information. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals to address challenges in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and architectures that deeply integrate symbolic reasoning with data-driven machine learning to create robust, assured, and, therefore, trustworthy AI-based systems. […]
A new legislative “discussion draft” that aims to create a stronger data privacy and security landscape for U.S. consumers would put the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in charge of the proposed new rules and would preempt most existing state laws on data privacy and security. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting new contract proposals to advance and enhance machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as part of the agency’s new Enabling Confidence (EC) program. […]
President Biden has announced his intent to nominate Richard DiZinno as a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). […]
President Biden has announced his intent to nominate Nate Fick as the ambassador at large to lead the State Department’s newly established Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP). […]
Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-N.V., and Todd Young, R-Ind., have introduced legislation aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity of medical devices, and requiring the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review and update its medical device cybersecurity guidelines. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded Northrop Grumman and Owl Cyber Defense Solutions spots on a new contract with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) that totals $240 million. […]
As Federal agencies are working to make progress on President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) and implement zero trust security architectures, agencies and their leaders must have a tight handle on their zero trust implementation plans, an official from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said this week. […]
Before the Federal government flows new broadband support funding out to unserved and underserved areas of the U.S., it must know where the service is robust and where it’s not. […]
The Alliance for Digital Innovation (ADI) is pressing congressional appropriators to provide more money in Fiscal Year 2023 budget legislation for primary sources of Federal agency IT modernization funding, including the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), along with the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Citizen Services Fund (FCSF). […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) still needs to address a pair of open cybersecurity priority recommendations related to cybersecurity coordination and implementation of a cybersecurity framework, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Organization (GAO). […]
A new report issued Thursday by the successor of the congressionally chartered Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), called CSC 2.0, is calling on the Office of the National Cyber Director and Congress to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity workforce. […]
The Defense Department (DoD) Inspector General (IG) released a list of the top management and performance challenges facing the DoD in fiscal year (FY) 2022, including strengthening DoD cyberspace operations. […]
Ransomware attacks have increased by 80 percent year-over-year, with a “nearly 120 percent” increase in double-extortion ransomware attacks this year, according to a new report put out by Zscaler entitled ThreatLabz 2022 Ransomware Report. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert on June 1 warning about the Karakurt Data Extortion Group which has been conducting online financial extortion exploits via cyber attacks. […]
Smaller state and local governments (SLGs) often do not have the resources to build a robust IT department, and IT experts say cybercriminals often target these smaller agencies because of that reason. […]
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Space Force have announced that the next BRAVO 1 Canary Release – part of the BRAVO hackathon series, will begin July 11-15 at three different bases. […]
DOE’s Frontier supercomputer is named fastest in the world; HHS launches ARPA-H; CISA, DHS, and DoD propose 5G Security Evaluation Process, and more. For more news and insights on today’s mission-critical IT challenges, check us out on MeriTV. […]
Teresa Carlson, who left Microsoft in 2010 to found Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector operation and later serve as president and chief growth officer at Splunk, confirmed today that she rejoined Microsoft late last month as corporate vice president and Executive-in-Residence. […]
In a new report, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency’s first deployment site for its Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program lacks access to critical EHR metrics, and said that puts the hospital’s accreditation status at risk. […]
Can technology innovation pave the way for better citizen service? On July 21 – we’re going to find out. The countdown to MerITocracy 2022: American Innovation Forum is on. The in-person forum – taking place at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C., from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. – will host bipartisan leaders from Congress, the Biden administration, and America’s tech industry to examine the most pressing problems facing citizens in our democracy, and map out creative solutions from the nexus of policy and technology. We invite you to register for MerITocracy today. […]
The Federal government’s Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) is falling short on information sharing regarding each participating agency’s current or planned spending for the whole-of-government initiative, and could use a shared database to make spending information more readily accessible, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has notified election officials of software vulnerabilities found in Dominion Voting Systems equipment deployed in several states, but also that the agency has found no evidence that those vulnerabilities have ever been exploited. […]
The U.S. Space Force has rolled out new cybersecurity standards for commercial satellite operators to give satellite companies an incentive to bolster their security. […]