Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

FedRAMP released its plan to align with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) latest update to SP 800-53, Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations, Revision 5 (Rev5). […]

cybersecurity

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), a component agency of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), struggled to keep its disaster recovery plan in place during COVID-19, failing to store off-site backups and not conducting testing, according to a report released by the EPA’s inspector general. […]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is looking to manage the growing number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with augmented reality tools to ensure safety in the air and visibility for air traffic management. […]

CX Customer experience -min

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released a “Customer Experience (CX) Cookbook” for Federal agencies that features key ingredients and recipes for embedding CX in Federal services and for cooking up CX best practices. […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LMNL) has turned to a mobile app to let the public time travel to the 1940s. LMNL announced that it has re-released its mobile app, The Secret City: Project Y, which allows users to explore Los Alamos, N.M., as it was during the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking for cloud hosting for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s (ASPR) website. […]

Cybersecurity

The dark web has long provided a safe haven for cybercriminals to plot illicit activities, often with huge implications for the government. To stay ahead of cybercriminals, Federal agencies have to investigate threats and emerging adversaries on their networks – but that is easier said than done. […]

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is looking to move its current filing platform to a cloud-based platform, according to a Nov. 23 request for information (RFI). In the RFI, the FEC said it is looking to create a “modern, state of the art, cloud-based, secure, platform-independent electronic filing data application.” […]

Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) plans to modernize a key system and move it to the cloud to support better information sharing, improved data management, and enhanced security, according to a notice in the Federal Register released November 23. […]

A bill introduced in the Senate Nov. 18 by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio would charge the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with reporting to Congress on the impact of the Chinese government’s influence in setting global standards for emerging technologies. […]

House and Senate leaders have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to provide multiple briefings to members of Congress on how the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is going about implementing President Trump’s controversial executive order to create a new “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions. […]

Joe Biden
Defending HVAs

The crown jewels of Federal agency network and data assets need better protection from cyber adversaries, but the jury is still out as to whether and when the government’s primary security program to protect them – the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program – will provide the kind of protections that those assets require. […]

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, both the public and private sector are turning to telework to help stem the spread of the virus. This reliance on telework has increased investment in cloud computing services, which will cause the cloud market to grow 18.4 percent in 2021, according to a Nov. 17 report from Gartner. […]

Emily Murphy GSA

House Democratic committee leaders didn’t get the briefing they wanted on Monday from General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily Murphy on why she has not yet made a judgement that Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election, so they pressed for a briefing session on Tuesday. […]

Joe Biden

President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris said today they plan to nominate Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, and Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). […]

Army

Federal agencies are leveraging past work on authorizations to operate (ATO) to bring in more cloud tools covered by the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Brian Conrad, FedRAMP Cybersecurity Program Manager. […]

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidance on Federal workforce rotational cybersecurity assignments envisions 120-day rotation assignments to other agencies, and lists  several programs that rotations may run through, according to a Nov. 18 memo to agency heads from Michael Rigas, Acting Director of OPM. […]

The Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program (FedRAMP) is poised to take a major step forward as the House and Senate take up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2021 – a high priority post election. This must-pass legislation authorizes appropriations and establishes policies for the Defense Department. […]

cloud

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed late Friday that it awarded the Intelligence Community (IC) Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) contract to multiple vendors. […]

Washington DC capitol federal government-min
White House

President-Elect Joe Biden has named Cathy Russell Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, and Louisa Terrell Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. […]

FCC

The Federal Communications Commission said Nov. 19 that it plans to consider a report and order at its Dec. 10 open meeting that would require some telecommunications service providers to remove and replace equipment in their networks that pose “unacceptable risks” to U.S. national security. […]

Cyber

The Defense Department’s (DoD) U.S. Cyber Command is introducing the Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture (JCWA) – a concept to integrate cyber warfighting systems—but needs to define JCWA interoperability goals for the systems, the Federal government’s watchdog agency said. […]

identity management-min

As Federal agencies continue to keep a majority of their workforces teleworking – and may continue to do so for the longer term as the coronavirus pandemic heats up again – keeping identity management practices a top priority has been a key ingredient in Federal agency cybersecurity efforts. […]

Emily Murphy GSA

The chairs of the House Appropriations and Oversight and Reform committees are seeking a personal briefing by Monday, Nov. 23, from General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily Murphy on why GSA has yet to arrive at a judgement that Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the presidential election […]

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