The emergence of adversarial artificial intelligence (AI) requires special attention. AI users need to understand the threat space and organize responsible AI mitigations, said Pamela Isom, director of the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO) at the Department of Energy (DoE), on Oct. 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBTT) programs awarded over $3 billion in contracts to small businesses in fiscal year (FY) 2020, but those awards were not been consistently issued in a timely fashion, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. […]

The Defense Digital Service (DDS) is repurposing its automated background investigations prototype to focus on insider threats, which includes a name change from the System for Automated Background Evaluation and Review (SABER) to the System for Insider Threat Hindrance (SITH). […]

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the DoD, is working on an artificial intelligence project that goes beyond the simple augmentation of work process and is focusing on the symbiosis of human and machine, according to a DARPA official. […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has wholly transformed the way employees are recruited, hired, trained, evaluated, and even fired. However, employers must find the right division of labor between AI and human resources personnel between using AI to improve human decision-making and delegating decision-making entirely to algorithms, said Keith Sonderling, commissioner for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), on Oct 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]

For many government agencies, Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology has formed the core of their networks for decades. Because many mission-critical operations run on TDM services, organizations often took an ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to TDM. Today, TDM technologies are at end of life – or beyond – and expertise in them is quickly dwindling. […]

The Treasury Department released a new report that found ransomware victims paid $590 million during the first six months of 2021, which is more than the value reported for the entirety of 2020 ($416 million). […]

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) project for further development of its Login.gov authentication and identity proofing services won by far the largest share of funding from the Technology Modernization Fund’s (TMF) awards totaling $311 million announced late last month. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint advisory on Oct. 18 warning organizations that the BlackMatter ransomware group is targeting U.S. critical infrastructure entities. […]

The United States Army wants to freely send data back and forth from its legacy enterprise systems to the tactical edge, and Army officials said the key to getting there is mapped out in the service branch’s recently released strategy to unify tactical and enterprise networks and ultimately create a common data fabric. […]

In the new era of cyber defense, Ted Okada, chief technology officer (CTO) at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), stressed that IT leaders must take the right risks to lead their teams in risk management efforts. […]

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released its report on management and performance challenges for fiscal year (FY) 2022, which includes highlighting “significant” challenges in IT investment, system development, and security controls. […]

Democrats in both the House and Senate have introduced bills to fund a cybersecurity grant education program at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).      […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint cyber advisory Oct. 14 warning of an ongoing cyber threat to U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS) facilities and gave the WWS sector recommended mitigations. […]

NASA officials predict that the agency’s latest state-of-the-art satellites – launching soon – will generate an unprecedented amount of data that will be difficult to manage and optimize with NASA’s current software. Therefore, NASA researchers have turned to cloud computing to make the most of that treasure trove of information. […]

Research from MeriTalk shows that 83 percent of government cybersecurity leaders say their organization operates on an “assume breach” model – assuming their networks have already been breached, or will be. However, cybersecurity experts stress that it’s equally important to put efforts into breach prevention, which involves crucial steps such as identifying all network assets. […]

Federal agency chief information officer (CIO) reporting lines – long a mainstay for critical review by the House Oversight and Reform Committee in its semi-annual FITARA Scorecard that rates Federal agencies on key IT effectiveness measures – are taking center stage in a new report from the Labor Department’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., are calling for the Biden administration to work with Federal agencies to ensure they have the necessary workforce data to fulfill President Biden’s day one executive order on “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” […]

The U.S. Army announced it has delayed the rollout of its augmented reality headsets, which it expected to be in use this fall, until September 2022. […]

While increasing workforce diversity is a top focus for many Federal agencies, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat and Marine Corps Deputy CIO Renata Spinks stressed this week that diversity must include diversity of thought, not just diversity of culture. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for new solutions that incorporate biometric technology to help monitor its employees’ health and stress levels from work and at home, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on SAM.gov. […]

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Oct. 13 that Erie Meyer, a founding member of the agency’s tech and innovation team, will return to CFPB as its next chief technologist. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) hired Lt. Col. Jody Ogle, longtime cybersecurity and IT expert, as a cybersecurity advisor at the agency. […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched “The Time is Now: Advancing Equity in Science and Technology Ideation Challenge” on Oct. 14 to ensure all Americans can partake in the science and technology landscape. […]

While Federal government cybersecurity dominates news headlines this year – from the Biden administration’s executive order (EO) to the spate of high-profile attacks on government and private sector targets – Federal government chief information security officers emphasized this week the importance of tried and true best practices, current tooling, and workforce education in the campaign to improve defenses. […]

How well does government perform in getting done what it sets out to do? […]

The White House charted progress today following the conclusion of its two-day virtual Ministers and Representatives from the Counter Ransomware Initiative Meeting, and outlined several priority efforts to reduce the risk of ransomware attacks globally. […]

The United States Department of the Navy (DON) Information Superiority Vision is set to reshape how the service branch develops and deploys information technology services by embracing swift adoption of digital tools and shareability across the entire organization and its subcomponents. […]

With President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) directing Federal agencies to begin moving to zero trust security architectures, agencies already have begun to make the shift. However, progress on zero trust migration – which some Federal officials termed a “paradigm shift” at an ATARC webinar today – will look different for every agency. […]

As the cyber threat landscape continues to morph for entities at the Federal level, so too does it change for governments at the state, local, and tribal level. For the state of Illinois, adding cyber into emergency management and working closely with counties has helped to better prepare the state for cyber threats. […]