After facing IT challenges with the implementation of the Forever GI Bill, Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Robert Wilkie said during a Budget Request hearing for Fiscal Year 2021 that the department needed to look at its entire IT infrastructure’s readiness. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a year one report on the American Artificial Intelligence (AI) Initiative, announcing that the administration has met critical milestones. […]
At a Feb. 27 House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing, representatives largely criticized the President’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposal for cuts to investments in research and development (R&D), but praised funding increases to “industries of the future” like artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum information science (QIS). […]
The House Appropriations Committee questioned today why the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is requesting $2.6 billion in funds for Fiscal Year 2021 for the VA’s Office of Electronic Health Records (EHR)— $1 billion more than the FY2020 request— when the EHR Modernization go-live date was delayed and wants better communication on information from the agency to avoid delays and cost more money. […]
In a Feb. 26 letter to Dana Deasy, CIO of the Department of Defense (DoD), Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., stressed the importance of vulnerability disclosure programs. […]
When it comes to adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities, it’s important to look at its range of effects from many different viewpoints. […]
The Cybersecurity Tech Accord (CTA), an international, industry-led effort by technology and security companies to combat cyberattacks, said this week it signed up 14 new member companies, bringing its total number of accord signatories to 144 companies. […]
Jim Sullivan, defense intelligence officer (DIO) for cyber at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), emphasized the value of offensive operations in cyberspace to deter nation-state attackers during a panel discussion this week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. […]
Katie Arrington, the Defense Department’s (DoD) Chief Information Security Officer for Acquisition and a driving force behind the Pentagon’s recently released Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, voiced a vigorous defense on Feb. 26 of U.S. law and policy that bans the Federal government and its contractors from doing business with China-based network equipment maker Huawei. […]
Both the growing ability to project offensive cyber power, and a long list of old friends around the world, are helping the Federal government to develop a greater ability to create more effective deterrence against cyber adversaries, a senior Defense Department (DoD) official said on Feb. 26. […]
The desire to make the employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) more efficient in their work led to the creation of a Robotics Process Automation Center of Excellence, explained Pam Dempsey, the center’s lead. […]
Congressional staffers on House and Senate committees with strong interest in cybersecurity issues said today they are watching for “low-hanging fruit” in the form of easy-to-enact legislative proposals expected to make up some of the recommendations in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) report set to be released on March 11. […]
In a report released Feb. 25, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that “most” of nine agencies tasked with protecting the 16 critical infrastructure sectors “have not developed methods to determine the level and type of adoption of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” […]
The business side of the intelligence community (IC) has lagged behind the intelligence gathering mission of the IC when it comes to technology and IT, but new investments are moving the human capital enterprise forward. […]
Leaders from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shared how the agency’s acquisition process fueled successful IT transformation in projects like Accelerate at the Feb. 26 ServiceNow Federal Forum. […]
A group of graduate researchers from the University of California-Berkeley trained a machine learning model to predict voter preferences using only readily available personal information, suggesting further-reaching implications on the use of AI to infer voter behavior and potentially influence elections. […]
The Offices of Inspectors General (OIG) for the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) are planning to begin a joint audit to determine what actions taken by the DoD and VA in acquiring and implementing a common, commercial electronic health record system. […]
A senior official speaking Feb. 26 at the RSA Conference clarified recent steps by the State Department to publicly attribute and condemn acts of cyber aggression on the part of Russia, calling the actions of the Department part of a deliberate attempt to establish a framework for appropriate nation-state behavior in cyberspace. […]
Federal officials from the Defense Department (DoD), Justice Department (DoJ), and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Feb. 25 totaled up the sobering costs of intellectual property theft from U.S. interests in recent years, and pointed to strategies their agencies are pursuing to put a dent into that total going forward. […]
State and local election officials said at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Feb. 24 that Federal election assistance funding has been vital to their efforts to shore up election infrastructure security over the past few years. […]
Three members of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) on Feb. 25 hinted at several themes of the group’s upcoming recommendations for U.S. cybersecurity doctrine and policy that is due for public release on March 11. Central to the report’s conclusions will be a rethinking of cyber deterrence strategies, and greater coordination between the Federal government’s several agencies that focus on cyber defense, they indicated. […]
The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) released a report outlining best practices in building the cybersecurity workforce through regional partnerships. […]
A group of public sector cybersecurity leaders, speaking on a panel Feb. 24 at the RSA Public Sector Day event, discussed the challenge of reconciling competing priorities when assessing both the business value and mission value of cybersecurity investments. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs pledged today that there is no issue drawing more focus and attention at the Federal government level than election security leading up to the 2020 elections later this year. […]
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated the cybersecurity of contractors working with the United States Transportation Command during a hearing Tuesday. […]
The National Governors Association (NGA) urged Congress to take action on key pieces of legislation that will help harden state and local government’s (SLGs) cybersecurity defenses. […]
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will hold its next Technological Advisory Council (TAC) meeting on March 24 at the FCC headquarters. […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its 2019 Privacy and Data Security Update that highlighted “a record year for enforcement actions aimed at protecting consumer privacy and data security.” […]
While senators at a Feb. 25 Appropriations Committee hearing agreed with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf about the agency’s cybersecurity mission priority, election security cuts in the President’s Budget proposal raised questions from committee members. […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2020 (H.R. 5680) could slightly lower the deficit, but not by a significant amount. The bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. on Jan. 27, would authorize the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue administrative subpoenas in rare […]