The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has appointed Denice W. Ross as the U.S. Chief Data Scientist. […]
The House of Representatives is expected to hold votes on its fiscal year (FY) 2022 reconciliation package – known as the Build Back Better Act (BBB) – as well as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) – today after the House Rules Committee finalized a rule for debate on the now $1.75 trillion “soft” infrastructure legislation late on Nov. 4. […]
With an estimated 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure controlled by private entities – and with many of those failing to practice basic cyber hygiene – witnesses told House lawmakers at a November 4 hearing that the time may be ripe for mandatory cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure operators. […]
Federal agencies as a group are “close” to completing work to put in place the first two of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program’s four key capabilities, said Betsy Kulik, senior advisor for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) CDM program, at a November 4 online event organized by FCW. […]
The White House announced today it is pushing back the deadline for Federal contractors to receive their COVID-19 vaccine until January 4. […]
The cybersecurity threats that have prompted wide-scale action to improve security across the Federal government are posing equal dangers to state and local governments, and officials said at FCW’s CDM Summit virtual event on November 4 that the same solutions being put into place by the Feds also are scalable and adaptable by state and local governments. […]
Jordan Burris – who serves as chief of staff for Federal CIO Clare Martorana, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat, and Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Chris DeRusha – will leave the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) November 12, he announced in a LinkedIn post. […]
A group of Republican senators sent a letter to White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients asking him to inform Congress how the Biden Administration plans to address data collection concerns following a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contact tracing order. […]
While several aspects in the electoral system may be at risk, election officials at the Federal and state level agreed that cyberthreats have routinely and at larger numbers attacked voters’ confidence in the system with the spread of misinformation. […]
After a lengthy review process, the Department of Defense today issued an update to its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program – dubbed CMMC 2.0 – that will simplify some of the cybersecurity requirements for contractors in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) looking to do business with the government. […]
As high-profile ransomware and other cyberattacks have spiked over the past year, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is working to prevent and mitigate against them by leveraging capabilities from the Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation (CDM) program, and working with organizations including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – which runs the CDM program – and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). […]
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is banning U.S. citizens from dealing with four companies the agency says acts against national security interests by trading and selling spyware and hacking tools to foreign governments. […]
The White House plans to nominate Kurt DelBene to the positions of CIO and Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has come under fire in recent months from Congress over a troubled roll-out and cost estimates for its electronic health records modernization (EHRM) program. […]
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced legislation this week to make permanent the General Service Administration’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), and ensure that Federal agencies can quickly and securely adopt cloud technologies. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted today to approve and send to the full Senate for consideration 11 pieces of legislation, including several related to artificial intelligence, the cybersecurity workforce, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]
While President Biden’s executive order (EO) on improving the nation’s cybersecurity and the follow-on guidance from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) represent critical steps forward in protecting the U.S. against the increasing volume and dangers of cyber-attacks, Federal agency officials said during an ATARC webinar on November 2 that the directives also present challenges that may require flexibility in their execution. […]
Despite a general cyber workforce shortage, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis today said his office has a “robust pipeline of talent” and expects to have 25 employees staffed in his office by the end of December, once Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 appropriations are released. […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued a request for information (RFI) seeking feedback on centers of excellence for personal protective technology (PPT), which includes personal protective equipment (PPE). […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today issued a Binding Operational Directive (BOD) to significantly boost the nation’s cyber hygiene by creating a catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities and forcing Federal agencies to remediate them. […]
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launches a new initiative to ensure artificial intelligence-enabled technology used in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions abide by Federal civil rights laws. […]
Looking towards a post-pandemic environment, training programs for supervisors and team leads will be crucial to guide employees through this workforce transformation, Federal government workforce leaders stressed during an AFCEA Bethesda event on November 3. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted today to approve three Biden administration nominees to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), an independent administrative Federal agency that administers the labor-management relations programs for more than two million non-postal Federal employees. […]
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance – a trade group for the intel and national security communities – is arguing in a new white paper that United States space systems should be classified by the Federal government as critical infrastructure. […]
In the campaign to help combat violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women in the U.S., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that better efforts to create and analyze case data in Federal databases are necessary to better understand the full extent of the crisis and work to alleviate it. […]
Saddled with a heavy set of expectations for its potential to jumpstart Federal IT modernization, the cash-rich Technology Modernization Fund kicked off its billion dollar-plus spending spree on September 30 with $311 million of awards to Federal agencies. […]
The Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building submitted its first-year report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), pursuant to the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, detailing its findings and making a list of recommendations including establishing a permanent Federal Chief Statistician role to help improve agency data use. […]
The National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) – a group of private sector experts that advises the White House on telecom availability and reliability issues – has drafted several recommendations for the Biden administration including one to establish a task force for software assurance in information and communications technology and services supply chains. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released draft criteria for consumer software cybersecurity labeling, as mandated by the Biden administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order. […]
Despite recent scrutiny over program missteps and complaints from frontline staff, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program plans to deploy the EHRM program at a second location in Columbus, Ohio, in February 2022, VA Deputy Secretary Donald Remy told lawmakers today. […]
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has a strong information security maturation, with an overall grade of 4 on a 5-point scale, but still has “significant security control weaknesses,” according to a recent audit of its information security practices released by the FDIC Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]