The Senate adopted the House-passed version of the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium (NCPC) Act by unanimous consent, sending the bill to the President’s desk for his signature. […]
The Senate has confirmed Laurie Locascio, President Biden’s nominee to be the next undersecretary of Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce, through an April 7 voice vote. The title typically comes with the dual role of Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. […]
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., wrote a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) urging it to address an issue with its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program that requires a double-entry process for pharmacists to prescribe medication to veterans. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is teaming up with state governments to investigate robocall scammers targeting consumers and businesses around the country. […]
Federal agencies are continuing to work towards implementing zero trust security architectures, but which of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) security pillars will take precedence in zero trust development? […]
Do you know someone who works hard to drive innovation and ensure our nation’s cybersecurity? MeriTalk wants you to submit nominations for our Cyber Defenders Awards, to honor those individuals who have made significant contributions across cyber programs in Federal IT. […]
Shortly before heading out of town for a two-week home-district work period, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress named a whopping 87 members to a conference committee that will work out differences between the House and Senate versions of a competition and innovation bill that includes $52 billion in semiconductor funding, funding for a new tech directorate at the National Science Foundation, and big boosts in Federal research and development funding. […]
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., have introduced new legislation that would ensure sharing of cybersecurity information between operational cyber staff in the Executive Branch and the members of the Senate and House. […]
The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has determined that data centers offer a prime opportunity for the Federal government to cut energy consumption while agency demand grows to embrace cloud services and modernize legacy IT systems. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has formally accounted in the proposed Fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget for risks posed by climate change, and warned of potentially devastating impacts on U.S. gross domestic product along with flood risks to thousands of Federal facilities by the end of this century. […]
The Senate confirmed William LaPlante to be under secretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense (DoD) on April 7 by voice vote. […]
The Portland Air National Guard’s 142nd Security Forces Squadron has become the first state National Guard unit to fetch a new “robot dog” and test out the technology for surveillance and base security operations. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee this week approved a bill that aims to put in place a Federal workforce hiring policy that places greater emphasis on prospective employees’ work experience, rather than their educational credentials – a policy put forward in an executive order from then-President Trump in 2020. […]
Kevin Kampschroer, chief sustainability officer and director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings at the General Services Administration (GSA), cited the ambitious clean-energy targets of big tech-sector companies as encouragement that the Federal government can meet White House clean-energy goals, including through more efficient data center usage. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI said this week they worked together to disrupt a botnet comprised of thousands of infected network hardware devices and controlled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the GRU). […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities are still coming to bear as Federal agencies continue to understand how these technologies can help drive cloud adoption and evolution. However, to be successful in this environment Federal agencies must understand their security obligations and those of a cloud computing provider to ensure accountability, along with the role that AI/ML plays in security automation, a senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) official said. […]
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced the appointment of Air Force Lt. Gen. Mary O’Brien to be the next Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the J-6 Joint Staff and director for the J-6 command, control, communications, and computers/cyber, according to an April 5 Department of Defense (DoD) release. […]
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform on April 6 approved legislation that would open a new pipeline for computer equipment from the Federal government to students and veterans. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee on April 6 voted to approve the Access for Veterans to Records Act that aims to cut down the backlog of veterans’ records requests at the National Personnel Records Center, which is housed in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) is launching a new initiative that will set up the agency as the prime destination for cloud solutions, a GSA official said on April 6 at FCW’s Cloud Summit event. […]
Moving to the cloud comes with a number of benefits, but Federal experts on April 6 stressed that agencies still need to implement good cloud governance and management processes in order to control costs. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today unveiled new thinking about challenges, opportunities, and success metrics for the three President’s Management Agenda goals that the agency first announced in November 2021. […]
Having an on-premises data center and a cloud computing environment – otherwise referred to as hybrid cloud – is the norm for many Federal agencies and industry partners, and an official from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) predicts a “more deliberate usage of hybrid cloud” in the next few years. […]
In an effort to better protect critical infrastructure, House representatives and Federal cybersecurity officials spoke today about how to most effectively identify the nation’s most systemically important critical infrastructure. […]
With at least a half-million cybersecurity positions unfilled in the United States, Federal experts and educators said closing the gap on the shortage of cybersecurity professionals begins with cyber education efforts, particularly at the K-12 level. […]
The House voted on April 5 to approve legislation that would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revamp and improve their memorandum of understanding (MOU) on spectrum coordination. […]
The growing investment in technology and IT solutions naturally comes with caveats with regards to price. CIOs from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) remain conscientious of making sure the planet does not pay that price. […]
The Department of Treasury announced that, in collaboration with domestic Federal law enforcement partners, its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) levied sanctions against Hydra, the world’s largest darknet market, and Garantex, a virtual currency exchange. […]
The United States government piled on new financial and trade sanctions against Russian banks and leaders today – just the latest of numerous sanctions levied as part of the U.S. response to the invasion that began in late February – but the provision of Internet and phone services continues to remain off the sanctions list. […]
The Procurement Innovation Lab (PIL), which was established in 2016 to experiment with innovative acquisition techniques across the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enterprise, has now expanded its vision to help innovate procurement processes for other entities across the Federal space. […]