The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) issued a new report this week that breaks down four problem areas in intergovernmental responses and consequences to the COVID-19 pandemic, and makes recommendations for better disease-related data sharing mechanisms between states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). […]

Protecting healthcare data is essential, but cybersecurity experts say it is one of the hardest industries to protect due to its larger attack surface – and the fact that lives are at risk. […]

The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is hosting a Security at the Edge Cyber Challenge, with the multiple-phase challenge seeking to identify technologies that are capable of providing security-at-the-edge capabilities, according to a special notice posted on SAM.gov. […]

The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) is in search of vendors that can provide Weather Analysis and Survivability Prediction (WAASP) software to inform launch decisions based on real-time meteorological conditions. […]

The Department of State is inviting Federal employees and contractors to renew their passports online before the agency opens that new capability to the public later in 2022. […]

The White House has released a “Rural Playbook” to help familiarize state, local, tribal, and territorial governments in rural areas with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and assist them in applying for funding under the law. […]

The IRS has pledged to work on modernizing its “Where’s My Refund” taxpayer refund tracking tool after a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) flagged the need for the agency to address that and other problems. […]

Microsoft Corp. said it has disrupted cyberattacks from a group linked to the GRU – Russia’s foreign military unit – that were targeting Ukrainian entities and media organizations, as well as government institutions and foreign policy think tanks in the United States, according to an April 7 company blog. […]

Senior Federal and industry cybersecurity leaders agreed that the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) August 2021 memorandum M-21-31 to implement new event logging and share threat information has proven to be a significant step in bolstering cybersecurity across Federal civilian agencies. […]

Dr. Catherine Marsh, director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, talked about the value – in limited doses – of failure as an expected and necessary outcome of the difficult research areas that her organization was created to take on with the help of industry and academia. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) issues “Second Chance” grants to help nonprofits and state and local agencies to deliver services, with grantees reporting data to DoJ. However, DoJ hasn’t noted factors that could have influenced participants’ successes or conclusions to justify budgets, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), found that water surveillance technology has allowed public health officials to detect community-level disease outbreaks and even identify COVID-19 outbreaks one to two weeks sooner than clinical testing. However, GAO found a lack of national coordination and standardized methods leads to challenges with wider adoption of the tech. […]

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Jessica Rosenworcel wants the recently restarted FCC Interagency Cybersecurity Forum to focus on creating harmony between how the private sector and the Federal government implement cybersecurity controls. […]

The Senate adopted the House-passed version of the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium (NCPC) Act by unanimous consent, sending the bill to the President’s desk for his signature. […]

The Senate has confirmed Laurie Locascio, President Biden’s nominee to be the next undersecretary of Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce, through an April 7 voice vote. The title typically comes with the dual role of Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. […]

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., wrote a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) urging it to address an issue with its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program that requires a double-entry process for pharmacists to prescribe medication to veterans. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is teaming up with state governments to investigate robocall scammers targeting consumers and businesses around the country. […]

Federal agencies are continuing to work towards implementing zero trust security architectures, but which of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) security pillars will take precedence in zero trust development? […]

Do you know someone who works hard to drive innovation and ensure our nation’s cybersecurity? MeriTalk wants you to submit nominations for our Cyber Defenders Awards, to honor those individuals who have made significant contributions across cyber programs in Federal IT. […]

Shortly before heading out of town for a two-week home-district work period, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress named a whopping 87 members to a conference committee that will work out differences between the House and Senate versions of a competition and innovation bill that includes $52 billion in semiconductor funding, funding for a new tech directorate at the National Science Foundation, and big boosts in Federal research and development funding. […]

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., have introduced new legislation that would ensure sharing of cybersecurity information between operational cyber staff in the Executive Branch and the members of the Senate and House. […]

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has determined that data centers offer a prime opportunity for the Federal government to cut energy consumption while agency demand grows to embrace cloud services and modernize legacy IT systems. […]

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has formally accounted in the proposed Fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget for risks posed by climate change, and warned of potentially devastating impacts on U.S. gross domestic product along with flood risks to thousands of Federal facilities by the end of this century. […]

The Senate confirmed William LaPlante to be under secretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense (DoD) on April 7 by voice vote. […]

The Portland Air National Guard’s 142nd Security Forces Squadron has become the first state National Guard unit to fetch a new “robot dog” and test out the technology for surveillance and base security operations. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee this week approved a bill that aims to put in place a Federal workforce hiring policy that places greater emphasis on prospective employees’ work experience, rather than their educational credentials – a policy put forward in an executive order from then-President Trump in 2020. […]

Kevin Kampschroer, chief sustainability officer and director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings at the General Services Administration (GSA), cited the ambitious clean-energy targets of big tech-sector companies as encouragement that the Federal government can meet White House clean-energy goals, including through more efficient data center usage. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI said this week they worked together to disrupt a botnet comprised of thousands of infected network hardware devices and controlled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the GRU). […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities are still coming to bear as Federal agencies continue to understand how these technologies can help drive cloud adoption and evolution. However, to be successful in this environment Federal agencies must understand their security obligations and those of a cloud computing provider to ensure accountability, along with the role that AI/ML plays in security automation, a senior Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) official said. […]

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced the appointment of Air Force Lt. Gen. Mary O’Brien to be the next Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the J-6 Joint Staff and director for the J-6 command, control, communications, and computers/cyber, according to an April 5 Department of Defense (DoD) release. […]