After a spate of cyberattacks and ransomware attacks on American companies and critical infrastructure providers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers and members of the cybersecurity industry expressed shock and disappointment that mandatory cyber incident reporting was dropped from the conferenced version of the fiscal year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). […]
The Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported the Open Courts Act of 2021 (S. 2614) to the full Senate floor with bipartisan support for the legislation. […]
Senators praised Kurt DelBene, the nominee for chief information officer (CIO) and assistant secretary for information and technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), during a quick Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Dec. 8, and called for swift confirmation by the full Senate. […]
While healthcare disparities are not new, the COVID-19 pandemic did highlight the persistent and systemic inequities with healthcare in this country, especially for indigenous communities. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced establishment of a Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO), responsible for strengthening and integrating data, AI, and digital solutions across DoD. […]
Two major pieces of cybersecurity legislation – a Senate-approved bill to reform the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), and another bill to standardize reporting requirements for major cybersecurity incidents – both failed to make the cut in the House-Senate conference version of the fiscal year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that passed the House Dec. 7. […]
The Department of the Navy has a good sense of how data is generated on the mission side, but struggles to analyze that data and decide appropriate uses for it, according to the Navy’s Chief Data Officer (CDO) Tom Sasala. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is contracting JumpStart, an app developer, to build a platform using AI and a user’s own body to improve the physical therapy process – unless other off-the-shelf apps are identified with equal or greater capabilities. […]
Performance management for the government is at a crossroads between traditional and new emergent models. But the dawn of big data and technological advancements in analytics has brought forth new opportunities for an emergent performance management framework that deliberately seeks to leverage these data. […]
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Service (TTS) wants to build a federated authentication service and is looking for input on this effort, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on Sam.gov. […]
The U.S. Coast Guard has selected AT&T to consolidate different data communications networks onto a single modernized data communications platform under a task order worth up to $161 million over 11 years. […]
Today the Senate voted 68-31 to confirm Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to another five-year term. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has issued a presolicitation on SAM.gov, detailing its plans to utilize emerging technologies to improve healthcare products and in turn, patient care. […]
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a second cloud computing region specifically intended to host top-secret classified information from U.S. defense, intelligence, and national security agencies. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is acknowledging strides that the Biden administration has taken this year to broadly improve cybersecurity, but is still encouraging the Federal government to take more steps to strengthen the cybersecurity of the nation’s critical infrastructure in light of several high-profile cyber incidents over the course of the past year. […]
The White House on Dec. 6 released the first-ever United States Strategy on Countering Corruption, which among other steps aims to utilize the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) newly established National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to hold corrupt actors accountable. […]
The White House has released a supplement to President Biden’s fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget that looks to increase funding for research and development (R&D) projects conducted under the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. […]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is looking for small businesses to work on a bid for a potential 10-year, $8 billion professional services contract to support satellite programs. […]
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expects to have a final conference agreement for the fiscal year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week, with votes potentially taking place into the weekend, Schumer wrote in a Dec. 6 Dear Colleague letter. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released guidance on Dec. 3 encouraging Federal agencies to cooperate and support their agency inspectors general (IGs). […]
Legislation designed to strengthen the Office of Personnel Management Act has cleared the House Oversight and Reform Committee, despite multiple Republicans objecting to the bill. […]
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has promoted Teresa Pitts to become the agency’s new chief of staff from her previous role of civilian deputy at the DISA’s Operations Center, DISA announced. Pitts, like all incumbents to the role, is expected to hold her new title for two to three years. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) released the third installment of the Security Guidance for 5G Cloud Infrastructures four-part series, which is intended to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data within a 5G core cloud infrastructure. […]
Federal mandates, including Cloud Smart and the Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order, are pushing agencies to modernize and migrate to the cloud. But with modernization comes complexity. Agencies are increasingly living in a hybrid world, with some workloads remaining on-premises while others move to the cloud. Add multi-cloud vendors to the mix, and it becomes harder for agencies to have a holistic view across their environments. […]
The Federal government is cultivating artificial intelligence (AI) technology gardens across major agencies, but varying mission requirements and funding streams for those efforts are producing strikingly uneven results. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on December 6 issued new Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) guidance to Federal agencies for Fiscal Years 2021-2022 that promotes agency action on several items in the Biden administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order issued in May, and that also aligns with aspects of current Senate legislation on FISMA reform. […]
Since the release of the Cloud First mandate in 2011, the Federal government has been pushing agencies to modernize legacy technology and migrate to the cloud. While Cloud First evolved into Cloud Smart, agencies have historically taken a measured approach to cloud migration. On the most recent FITARA scorecard, only three agencies scored an A in the Modernizing Government Technology category. Eleven agencies scored a C or below. […]
The Federal government avoided a costly shutdown, after the House and Senate both passed a continuing resolution Dec. 2 to keep the government funded until Feb. 18, 2022. President Biden signed the CR today, the White House announced. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that a Russian cybercriminal, charged with providing hosting services for fellow cybercriminals, will serve 60 months in prison for services he provided for malware distribution and attacks on American financial institutions between 2009 and 2015. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the final draft of its Internet of Things (IoT)-specific guidance for Federal organizations, intended to support extending their risk management process to the inclusion of IoT devices in Federal systems. […]