On average, it takes 287 days to identify and contain a data breach, according to IBM Security’s 2021 Cost of a Data Breach report. The longer the delay in identifying a breach, the costlier it is. When a breach takes more than 200 days to identify and contain, it cost organizations an average of $4.87 million in 2021, while breaches that took less than 200 days cost an average of $3.61 million, IBM found. […]
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Kiran Ahuja stressed the need for agency budgets to include funding for efforts to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) for the Federal workforce during a Jan. 27 roundtable discussion hosted by OPM and the Commerce Department. […]
The Biden-Harris administration released a vision statement for the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) in November, and has since released a draft learning agenda that will inform further development of the PMA. But what’s next for the PMA and when can agencies expect implementation efforts to begin? […]
The Department of the Interior is working to hire a new chief information officer (CIO) to lead the agency’s IT strategy and budget, according to a job posting on USAjobs.com. The new hire would serve in the Senior Executive Service and have a place on the Federal CIO Council. […]
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sees a slew of opportunities for the extended reality (XR) technology within the Federal government, but also cautions that several cyber-related challenges remain. […]
Lawmakers urge officials from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to staff the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) task force with AI experts in a letter sent Tuesday. […]
The final version of the Office of Management and Budget’s zero trust security directive issued this week drew strong praise from private-sector providers of security technologies to Federal agencies for its hard deadlines and firm direction to agencies on how to begin digging into the task of migrating toward zero trust architectures. […]
Recent waves of cybercrime underscore the importance of increased government visibility before, during, and after a cybersecurity incident. As adversaries continue to target government networks and other infrastructure, efficient event logging is crucial in identifying, investigating, and preventing attacks. President Biden’s May 2021 executive order on cybersecurity set new requirements for event logging, and Office of Management and Budget memorandum M-21-31 in August 2021 provided guidance for agencies on how to meet those requirements. […]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is well along with its cloud adoption plans, and eyeing several key security-related milestones over the next couple of years, explained Chezian Sivagnanam, NSF’s chief enterprise architect, at Jan. 26 virtual event organized by FCW. […]
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) voted today to take up a proposal that would require “nutrition labels” for broadband services, providing consumers with better information about prices, speeds, additional fees, network management practices, and more. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved an additional 100 funding applications totaling $47.8 million in the second round of its COVID-19 Telehealth Program. […]
The Department of Interior’s Interior Business Center (IBC) announced the completion of multiple modernization projects for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board’s (FRTIB) Financial Systems. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has successfully deployed its Military Health System (MHS) GENESIS electronic health record (EHR) system to facilities in the San Antonio, Texas area. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) has launched a new initiative – dubbed “Justice Counts” – to help states make smarter policy and budget decisions using up-to-date, actionable criminal justice data. […]
The White House announced today it will extend the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Cybersecurity Initiative to the water sector, as part of a larger effort to set cybersecurity baselines for critical infrastructure and protect it from cyber threats. […]
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) released the first-ever supply chain security standard (SCS 9001), developed specifically to aid the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. […]
Data compromises in 2021 hit an all-time high with a total of 1,826 incidents reported, according to a recent report released by Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it will commit another $240 million in its eighth wave of the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) program support. […]
Jennifer Franks, director of information technology and cybersecurity at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), is calling on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop a standardized definition of what the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) costs and how government agencies should evaluate costs when moving their services into the cloud. […]
Ross Nodurft, executive director of the Alliance for Digital Innovation and former chief of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) cybersecurity team, gave positive reviews to the final version of OMB’s zero trust security directive to Federal agencies, but also noted agencies’ ability to find funding to implement the strategy in the near term remains somewhat cloudy. […]
The House of Representatives has crafted a new semiconductor and innovation legislative measure that features $52 billion in funding for semiconductor production, $45 billion for supply chain issues, and the establishment of a new Science and Engineering Solutions Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The bill, called the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence […]
Today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the final version of its strategy that directs Federal agencies to migrate to zero trust security architectures. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued the final copy of its security and privacy control assessment procedures on Jan. 25. […]
Edging into what everyone hopes will be a post-pandemic environment, Federal agencies have learned a lot about remote work. But as employees continue to work from remote environments, agency tech leaders will need to continue to rethink policies, IT modernization, security, and training practices to ensure an integrated workplace environment, several Federal CIOs chief said during ATARC’s CIO Virtual Summit Jan. 25. […]
Organizations and agencies across industries and government have been rocked in recent years as cyberattacks are getting more sophisticated, costly, and disruptive. With the Federal government in the crosshairs of bad actors trying to steal sensitive data – or worse – President Biden has made cybersecurity a critical focus of his administration. His Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO 14028) gives Federal technology teams clear directives designed to quickly secure Federal networks. One of those directives instructs agencies to adopt a zero trust architecture. […]
The Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer (OFCIO) added two Federal IT veterans to its staff last week, hiring Drew Myklegard as associate Deputy Federal CIO and former Air Force Chief Data Officer (CDO) Eileen Vidrine as a senior strategic advisor for Data to the Federal CIO, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) issued in May 2021, brought along an ambitious deadline schedule for reporting requirements, which Federal chief information officers (CIOs) advise agencies to meet – even if their answer is that they’re “not ready yet.” […]
According to a recent audit by the Department of Commerce Inspector General (IG), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) current program launch plans may be increasing risk in the development of its environmental satellites. […]
Amid the blizzard of mounting security threats posed by sophisticated adversaries and increased attack surfaces spawned by large-scale telework, most Federal agencies are getting the message and moving strongly toward developing zero trust security architectures. […]
stackArmor announced today that the company is working with Red Hat to accelerate the FedRAMP Authority to Operate (ATO) project for Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA). […]