The surging use of collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom during the pandemic has dramatically increased the information attack surface for organizations and widened blind spots in data protection. MeriTalk recently connected with Matthew Radolec, Director of Security Architecture & Incident Response at Varonis, to understand how organizations can effectively detect and respond to cyber threats popping up in tools many haven’t thought to consider. […]
Defense Department (DoD) Deputy Chief Data Officer James Cully today emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind about how to work greater data capabilities into technology solutions as the Pentagon moves forward to execute on its data strategy released earlier this month. […]
In support of the Department of Defense’s broader mission, the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) is tasked with providing PK-12 instruction to roughly 68,500 dependents of military and civilian employees. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Oct. 24 officially launched its new electronic health record (EHR) system at VA facilities in the Pacific Northwest and Las Vegas. […]
A House bill introduced this month would allow small businesses who have received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to use those funds to procure cloud-based solutions. […]
The Energy Department is looking to modernize the Human Capital Management System (HCMS) at its Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York, according to an Oct. 23 request for proposal (RFP) posted on Beta.Sam.Gov. […]
As the nature of the Federal government’s work environment has changed due to the coronavirus pandemic, building cyber resiliency in cloud infrastructures has been essential to maintaining mission operations, agency officials said. […]
The global cost of cybercrime continues to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people’s personal data is potentially exposed, and our government and infrastructure are actively being targeted. Not only do ongoing issues such as noisy data play a role in the problem, but so does human motivation, specifically its impact on behavior. […]
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is looking for innovative ways to determine recording locations of audio and video data. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) explained in an Oct. 23 memo to Federal agency heads how it wants them to implement President Trump’s controversial executive order that creates a new Schedule F classification for employees in policy-making positions, but emphasized that OPM retains the final say in approving which employees are placed under the new schedule. […]
Back in March, the Federal government pivoted to telework practically overnight and since then, Federal IT experts have been on the hunt for ways to improve the employee experience, maximize productivity, and strengthen remote environment security. […]
A group of Democratic senators wrote to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) to request that the IG investigate alleged warrantless domestic surveillance of phones by DHS’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) component. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., whose northern Virginia congressional district is home to a multitude of Federal government employees, is working on legislation that would aim to overturn last week’s controversial White House executive order that would create a new classification of Federal employees in policy-making positions and make it easier to hire and fire them. […]
If you’re like most of us, you haven’t seen the inside of your old office in a while, and you’re spending a whole lot less time and money commuting for work. […]
Reps. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., and Pete Olson, R-Texas – both co-chairs of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus – on Oct. 23 stumped for the AI in Government Act of 2020 (H.R. 2575) that passed the House last month and now sits on Senate general legislative calendar awaiting possible action. […]
Federal officials this week discussed how they can support new approaches like zero trust and SD-WAN in an efficient and secure way by leveraging the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract along with security requirements of the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) 3.0 policy. […]
President Trump this week signed the US SAFE WEB Extension, which reauthorizes a 2007 law that permits the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action to protect U.S. consumers against cross-border fraud and deception using the internet. […]
The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) released a paper this week that sets forth recommendations to improve customer experience (CX) and service delivery. […]
A new bill introduced in the House this week would crimp the ability of the White House to curtail Internet access for U.S. citizens, and would put a short time limit on any service curtailment absent approval from Congress. The bipartisan bill offered by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., would limit the […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is canceling its audit of corrective actions taken by DoD in response to cybersecurity vulnerabilities identified during operational testing and evaluation of acquisition programs, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI issued a joint cybersecurity advisory on Oct. 22 to warn operators of state, local, territorial, and tribal (SLTT) government networks that they may be targeted by Russian state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) announced it is investing $197 million to advance microelectronics technology and strengthen the American microelectronics industry. […]
An executive order (EO) released on October 21 creates a new classification in the Federal workforce for career professionals in “policy-making” positions, with provisions that could make it easier to hire and fire employees and prevent them from joining unions. […]
The milCloud 2.0 environment offers Department of Defense (DoD) mission partners a range of benefits for data storage by leveraging vendor technology, an all-flash storage architecture, and a welcome level of familiarity, experts explained during MeriTalk’s milCloud 2.0: Powering the Future of Cloud Storage webinar on October 20. […]
The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is looking for industry partners to support its efforts to build exemplar zero-trust architectures that meet the standards set out by NCCoE’s parent organization, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). […]
The National AI Institute (NAII) is starting up a new AI Tech Sprint within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) which aims to empower an AI-enabled ecosystem through voluntary incentives linking Federal, industry, academia, and nonprofit organization ecosystems around AI R&D. […]
Officials from the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) said this week that two of their top concerns for further improving supply chain security are getting better end-to-end visibility of supply chains and integrating more threat intelligence into the picture. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified four top management challenges for agency management in Fiscal Year 2021 – including an IT modernization challenge that the OIG indicated can be addressed through a “persuasive vision” and plan that agency IT leaders are gearing up to implement. […]
A bipartisan Senate bill introduced Oct. 21 would make clear the authority of state governments to deploy their National Guard resources to help state and local governments improve their cybersecurity infrastructure and services. […]
The National Security Agency (NSA) has issued a cybersecurity advisory aimed at defense and intelligence community contractors warning of Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors exploiting publicly- known network vulnerabilities. […]