Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
cybersecurity
Emerging tech

A new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) found that just two percent of over 1,000 forms that it reviewed on Federal websites comply with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA). […]

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) found the agency needs to do more to strengthen its privacy program in order to better protect personally identifiable information (PII) and mitigate the risk of a privacy breach. […]

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has promoted Renata Spinks to assistant director of IT/deputy CIO and senior information security officer, with a formal promotion ceremony scheduled for September 10 at Marine Corps Base Quantico. […]

The longer the coronavirus pandemic lasts, the further in the rear-view mirror fades the pre-March 2020 version of work-life as many of us knew it – and the less likely it is that workforces spanning both the government and private sectors will ever fully get back to what was normal before the public health crisis. […]

Emerging tech

Creating a culture of innovation is essential to government success, according to both Federal and state government officials. During a recent GovLoop webinar, Carlos Rivero, chief data officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Jason Barke, acting principal deputy associate director for employee services at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), explained that a culture of innovation has to begin with a leadership mindset change to both encourage innovation and reduce the fear of failure. […]

cybersecurity
US tech

Canada and the United States have agreed to modernize the abilities of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to better meet evolving threats, the nations said in a joint statement. […]

Wireless service provider T-Mobile USA today increased its reported totals for customer accounts affected by a cyberattack that the company disclosed earlier this week. […]

Creating a culture of innovation is essential to government success, according to both Federal and state government officials. During a recent GovLoop webinar, Carlos Rivero, chief data officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Jason Barke, acting principal deputy associate director for employee services at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), explained that a culture of innovation has to begin with a leadership mindset change to both encourage innovation and reduce the fear of failure. […]

CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week it’s launching a new center for public health data, known as the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics. […]

IRS
cybersecurity

Ransomware attacks are on the rise and adversaries are developing more sophisticated cyberattacks, but Federal cyber experts agree that “the vast majority” of ransomware attacks active today can be prevented by good basic cyber hygiene practices. […]

Army DoD military Defense AI

The Department of the Army has appointed Angelica Phaneuf – who has spent the last few years doing cybersecurity for the Air Force’s Kessel Run detachment – as the next chief information security officer (CISO) for the Army Software Factory. […]

While the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is almost infinite, it still isn’t always the right solution to every problem, said Brett Vaughan, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) chief AI officer and ONR AI portfolio manager, during an August 19 webinar hosted by Cognilytica. […]

border

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is looking for augmented reality (AR) technology to surveil the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency’s aviation division, along with other Justice Department components, is seeking a name brand Shotover Systems Augmented Reality Mapping Systems (ARS) for government-owned and operated aircraft. […]

AI

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an AI accountability framework back in July, but a GAO official said at NextGov’s Emerging Tech conference August 18 that the organization’s work on AI oversight remains a work in process. […]

As Federal agencies modernize IT systems to meet mission goals, they must overcome barriers to creating business cases for change.

Agency culture is one of the barriers that can prevent change from happening at departments, Head of Office of Online Services at the IRS Karen Howard said today during the GovLoop Virtual Summit. […]

cybersecurity

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is making bids with the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) for funding that will help the agency improve cybersecurity and replace legacy systems that run high-value assets, said Sheena Burrell, NARA’s Deputy CIO, at a GovLoop event on August 19. […]

Federal money spending government
DISA

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) is looking for a tool to create a searchable database of social media posts and other publicly available information, actions, and interactions used in insider threat investigations. […]

Cybersecurity

As the first-ever appointed and confirmed National Cyber Director (NCD), Chris Inglis is responsible for coordinating the nation’s cyber strategy. But first, he’ll have to build out his office. […]

The Department of Commerce (DOC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported that the Census Bureau was hacked in early 2020 via a publicly available exploit. But the attack was only partially successful in that the attackers’ attempts to maintain access to the system by creating a backdoor in the affected servers were unsuccessful. […]

Air Force

The United States Air Force (USAF) on August 17 named Jay Bonci – a private sector cybersecurity veteran – as the service branch’s next chief technology officer (CTO), according to a post by Bonci. […]

FedRAMP

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization journey can sometimes be a confusing one to navigate, but experts agree that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) formats are helping to speed the FedRAMP approval process. […]

innovation
Cloud

Federal agency demand for cloud service products in the General Services Administration’s (GSA) FedRAMP marketplace showed a 60 percent year-over-year jump in the first half of Fiscal Year 2021, as agencies continued their move to cloud services in order to deal with pandemic-driven tech needs and IT modernization priorities. […]

AR

The IRS is looking to utilize augmented reality (AR) or a comparable version of extended reality (XR) technology to improve taxpayers’ experience with additional information when they point their mobile device at any IRS form or image. […]

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