A confluence of trends – including ever-mounting cyber attacks, expanding network attack surfaces stemming from increased teleworking during the coronavirus pandemic, and an enduring shortage of skilled cybersecurity workforce talent – is creating demand for more autonomous cybersecurity technologies. […]
For the first time in 2020, the United States Census Bureau offers an internet response option for the decennial count, and data from the bureau shows that most Americans responding to the survey are taking it online. […]
Today is “Super Junesday,” with primaries in D.C., Indiana, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Dakota. In any other year, this would be a significant day for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the agency tasked with helping ensure election security across the nation. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing protests across the country have added an additional stressor. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) announced that the department reached an agreement with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Accreditation Board (CMMC-AB) yesterday, several months after the agreement, and added that the department is working to ensure the new standard is applied equally across the Defense Industrial Base. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is planning to start re-opening its offices and released a facilities preparedness guide on June 2 that provides an enterprise-wide, risk management assessment for its blueprint to send Feds back to the office. […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that H.R. 5428, the Grid Modernization Research and Development Act of 2019, would cost the United States $1.2 billion over the next five years if enacted. […]
With several primary elections taking place today and the general election less than six months away, the group tasked by Congress to make recommendations to improve the nation’s cyber defenses made several additional recommendations to secure the 2020 elections. […]
Americans rely on government services 24/7, and even more so during times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has proven the critical importance of Federal IT in sustaining the nation, but left its tech leaders mostly unsung. MeriTalk is surfacing the untold stories – and lessons – of those agency and leadership efforts. In the latest installment of CIO Crossroads, we turn to the National Science Foundation (NSF). […]
The story of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is far from finished, and its importance in ensuring the security of Federal networks has only increased during the last three months as maximum telework has become the norm. As the CDM program assumes an even higher priority for agencies, how can Federal officials and industry stakeholders stay connected and focus on the program’s coming chapters? […]
The Department of Defense is planning on moving its network addresses into a bigger house, so to speak, but the Government Accountability Office says that the department needs to take more preparatory steps to plan before the move. […]
While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has fully planned for its pivot from waterfall to Agile development, about one-third (34 percent) of its planned Agile activities have been deferred to a later start date, according to a June 1 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. […]
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) issued a request for information June 1 for a cloud-based, vender-hosted solution to manage student activity funds at 64 of its schools around the world. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a new cyber essentials toolkit to help small businesses and Federal agencies understand and address cybersecurity risks. […]
As the first director of the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center prepares to retire, creating an Artificial Intelligence education program for the department is at the top of the list of priorities for his yet-to-be announced successor. […]
As states shift their voting processes and procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, another element of the process for states has been subject to change—Federal funding, an inconsistency that has caused local election officials to adapt on the fly. […]
Cloud security company Zscaler was selected by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) today to take on a secure cloud management project and deliver a zero-trust solution to defend against cyberattacks. […]
The G-7 Science and Technology Ministers recognized that a global pandemic will require a global response. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a mathematical formula that could help wireless networks, including 5G, select and share communications frequencies more efficiently. […]
Quantum technologies have a broad range of revolutionary capability, but to see their full potential, it may require many years of development. […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) wants an end-to-end processing, cloud-based solution to improve booking, approving, and reimbursing travel expenses and create a centralized platform for all agency travel, per a May 29 request for information (RFI). […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is leading the call for a governmentwide vulnerability disclosure platform, with a request for proposals from agencies coming as soon as summer 2020. […]
The National Security Agency has identified Russian military cyber actors – part of the General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate’s (GRU) Main Center for Special Technologies (GTsST) – have exploited a vulnerability in Exim mail transfer agent (MTA) software since at least August 2019. […]
Does it really take a team of rocket scientists to rapidly engineer a top-notch line of personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect against COVID-19 spread? And then to open source its production designs for the benefit of anyone with access to a 3D printer? […]
The Accreditation Body responsible for orchestrating the implementation of the Defense Department’s (DoD) new cybersecurity standard for contractors released two requests for information on May 27 as the organization looks to begin training assessors this summer. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – largely because of its broad, hands-on healthcare mission – is not the type of Federal agency that can transform to near 100 percent telework. But that didn’t stop the agency from more than tripling its telework capacity to meet the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, said agency CIO James Gfrerer during a May 28 AFCEA Bethesda webinar event. […]
The Federal government and critical infrastructure owners and operators spend $500 billion annually on information and communications technology (ICT) from thousands of suppliers – small, medium, and large; national and international. Digital transformation and globalization have brought technology advancements and operational efficiencies to Federal agencies. But the increasingly labyrinthine nature of Federal supply chains impacts the security of Federal systems, data, and missions. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) made several recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and others to improve coordination of cybersecurity requirements among Federal agencies to protect data shared with state government agencies. […]
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense (DoD) and the United State Air Force Warfare Center are partnering on a 5G prototype to be deployed for both defense and civilian use at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada early next year. […]
According to The Washington Post, 40 percent of Federal employees were set up for remote work before COVID-19. And, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just four percent of state and local employees had telework capabilities. Hundreds of thousands of government workers across Federal, state, and local levels were suddenly in need of remote access. […]
To secure the United States’ place as a global tech leader, a bicameral, bipartisan group of legislators have introduced the Endless Frontier Act. […]