Senior Federal IT experts – including the current and former Federal CISO and the Pentagon’s top IT official – are expressing broad agreement that the necessary ingredients are at hand to begin implementing zero trust security concepts for government networks, and that the time to act is now. […]
While a clear majority of stakeholders in the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program believe that CDM is more important than ever in defending against cyber breaches, only a small fraction praise CDM for its ability to build civilian government network resilience following a breach. […]
President Biden is signing an executive order (EO) today that will establish a task force for worker organizing and facilitate organizing across the country through an all-of-government approach to mobilizing Federal policies, programs, and practices. […]
In a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, GAO’s Chris Currie, director of the Homeland Security and Justice team, flagged longstanding management and operational issues within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) that has led to “frequent leadership turnover” and “organizational weaknesses.” […]
President Biden appointed Amit Mital, a cybersecurity industry veteran, to the National Security Council (NSC) as the senior director for cybersecurity strategy and policy, Mital’s LinkedIn confirms. Mital will also serve in the White House as a special assistant to the president. […]
The Department of Commerce’s Business Application Solutions (BAS) program – which aims to modernize the agency’s legacy financial systems – needs to develop a business practice reengineering plan and align its change effort processes with best practices, the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a management alert. […]
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) found that Federal employees overwhelmingly support continued telework after the pandemic, and believe that their productivity has increased while teleworking over the past 14 months. […]
Over the past year, the country has seen surges in civil unrest, protests, and riots – culminating in the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. These domestic threats are increasing in intensity and frequency, and emphasize the importance of protecting both Federal and state government employees and facilities. […]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued the seventh update in its quest for a cloud-based Common Enterprise Loan Origination and Servicing (CELOS) platform. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Risk Management Center (NRMC) has been busy assessing and identifying security risks for 5G wireless services, which present newfound risks unique to the technology, an NRMC official said April 22. […]
The United States Army Futures Command’s Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) has selected Booz Allen Hamilton to build a data fabric key to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept, the firm announced April 20. […]
Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas., and Frank Lucas, R-Okla., introduced the Combating Sexual Harassment in Science Act, which would expand research efforts to better understand the causes and consequences of sexual harassment in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. […]
Republicans in Congress on April 22 presented their own version of a framework to improve infrastructure in the United States. While it doesn’t look too much like President Biden’s much larger American Jobs Plan infrastructure proposal, for tech-related issues the key overlap appears to be funding for broadband infrastructure expansion. […]
President Biden announced plans for two key technology nominations on April 22, tapping Asmeret Berhe as nominee for director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DoE), and Robert Hampshire as nominee for assistant secretary for research and technology at the Department of Transportation (DoT). […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is looking for a new Chief Data Officer, according to a job posting on USAjobs.gov. The CDO would serve in a dual role, also with the responsibilities of deputy director of Human Capital Management and Modernization (HCMM). […]
The combined response of the Federal government and the private sector to the Russia-based cyberattack of government and business networks via SolarWinds Orion software is making for a promising use case for addressing major incidents in the future, said Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Chris DeRusha on April 22. […]
Three Democratic senators today asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to take a “flexible” approach in deploying $1 billion of new Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) money for Federal agencies to use to improve their IT systems, including adjusting or removing requirements for agencies to reimburse the TMF with savings generated from projects that get money from the fund. […]
The U.S. Army is looking for a contractor to provide a cloud-native, enterprise-wide data management platform. […]
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is currently undergoing a digital transformation to better deliver enterprise IT focused on cybersecurity, resiliency, and cloud, an agency official said on April 22. […]
Kiran Ahuja, President Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), committed at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing today to work with legislators on proposals to improve cybersecurity. […]
Kevin Cox, who has led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program for the past five-plus years, will be leaving the agency later this year to take on deputy CIO duties at the Department of Justice (DoJ). […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released COVID-19 testing guidance for Federal workplaces, including multiple testing strategies and information about different forms of testing, a CDC memo says. […]
Bipartisan legislation introduced in the House and Senate on April 21 would make it more difficult for Federal agencies to buy personal data on American citizens, and do more to protect citizens’ personal data from shady data broker sales. […]
Sens. Gary Peters D-Mich., and John Thune, R-S.D., have introduced legislation that would strengthen the Federal workforce through attracting experts in the AI field to public service. […]
The White House and a bipartisan group of senators are finding common ground in the Endless Frontier Act legislation introduced in the Senate today. […]
The Application Rationalization Playbook has been around since June 2019, yet not all IT portfolio managers have taken advantage of it. A Federal IT expert encouraged agencies to utilize this playbook, not only to help with cloud migration but also said it can help save costs and get chief information officers (CIOs) on “the same page.” […]
President Biden intends to nominate Stacey Dixon, an intelligence community veteran and current deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), to serve as the principal deputy director in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the White House announced today. […]
The Biden Administration announced that Matthew Wiegmann will serve as senior advisor for technology and delivery at the Treasury Department. […]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is looking into how it could use AI and machine learning in nuclear power generation and is seeking comment from the commercial nuclear power industry to help in that inquiry, according to an NRC request for comment published April 21. […]
Reps. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., reintroduced the Understanding Cybersecurity of Mobile Networks Act in the House on Tuesday in an effort to ensure the security of existing wireless networks. […]