MeriTalk recently sat down with Matt Trudewind, senior technical marketing engineer on security at NetApp, to talk about all things ransomware. During the discussion, Matt dove into the growing threat of cyberattacks targeting Federal agencies, and walked through the critical steps needed in ransomware remediation. With this ever-increasing threat comes a need for a robust cybersecurity strategy with solutions and technology in place to address attacks both before – and after – they occur. Today, Matt shares his insights on the best ways to get to those goals. […]

President Biden said today he was “optimistic” after speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the United States government’s expectations for cooperation from Russia in the event of ransomware attacks that emanate from Russian territory. […]

While the State Department Office of Technology Services’ (OTS) information system processes were compliant with many Department of State and Federal standards, there were some significant areas that require management attention, according to a new report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) investigation of the VA’s Electronic Health Records (EHR) modernization program has found an additional $2.5 billion in unreported IT infrastructure upgrade costs, which could put the program cost up to $5.1 billion more than estimated. […]

The Department of Labor’s (DoL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA) does not require the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to report data on suspected unemployment insurance (UI) fraud to either the ETO or the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), according to a July 1 OIG memo. […]

A wide-ranging executive order (EO) issued today by President Biden is aiming to boost opportunities  for small businesses by directing all Federal agencies to promote greater competition in their procurement and spending decisions, although specific marching orders to agencies to accomplish that goal have not yet been spelled out. […]

A wide-ranging executive order released by the Biden administration on June 9 is seeking to revive an Obama-era push for more public disclosure of broadband service performance and contract terms – an effort that fell by the wayside during the Trump administration. […]

Step one in launching a robust DevSecOps (Development, Security, and Operations) effort is moving to the cloud, a State Department expert recommended July 8. […]

If you’re ready to invest a couple hours of time and focus, then UniversIT is ready to deliver to you the latest information on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and military internet of things (IoMT) for government technology applications. Plus a few fringe benefits: you’ll never see a bill for our classes, and there’s no need to hike across campus in the summer heat. […]

The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences is dedicating $10 million in Federal funding for the creation of a research center that aims to address inequities in higher education online learning. […]

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said in its newly released annual Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) report for Fiscal Year 2020 that SBA’s  information security was “not effective” last year due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

The U.S. Air Force released a solicitation for proposals for its $4.79 billion NOVASTAR contract vehicle for services in research, development, and sustainment of hardware and software capabilities to support intelligence production requirements of the service branch, Department of Defense (DoD), and the intelligence community. […]

A Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that 3D printers pose a cybersecurity risk to the agency, after discovering DoD employees were not properly securing the IT systems used to develop 3D products, and were unaware the 3D printers even had IT systems that could be hacked. […]

Congresswomen Ayana Pressley, D-Mass., Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., on July 7 reintroduced legislation in the House to ban facial recognition use in most Federally funded public housing. […]

As Federal agencies deliberate how to reopen traditional offices and the policies they will need to keep employees safe, one thing is clear: gone are the days when the cubicle was the only option for government workers. The pandemic has forced Federal agencies to rethink telework policies, remote work, and even in-office setups. […]

White House national security staff took the Biden administration’s strategic thinking on ransomware prevention to the local government mayors this week, as administration advisors continued to work through a long list of policy items aimed at curbing the attacks and making them less profitable. […]

With President Biden’s cyber executive order (EO) guiding Federal agencies towards implementing zero trust architectures, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has already created a Zero Trust Playbook to help outline the change and create guidelines, the Corps’ CIO said today. […]

Republican members of Congress have written separate letters to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing concerns about the companies’ collection of data on students, among other issues. […]

After conducting its first bug bounty program last year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it is open sourcing the Finding Exploits to Thwart Tampering (FETT) Bug Bounty evaluation platform. […]

Former Federal CIO Suzette Kent, a champion of Federal IT modernization, has joined the Public Sector Advisory Board at Rubrik, a cloud data management company. […]

U.S. Air Force Chief Software Officer (CSO) Nicolas Chaillan this week emphasized the importance of a moving toward zero trust security architectures within the Department of Defense (DoD) – a process that DoD Acting CIO John Sherman has said is a top tech priority for the Pentagon. […]

The Department of Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plans on using its Pilot IRS program to release a multiple solution challenge to help digitize paper files. The agency will award multiple $7.5 million contracts based on which contractors offer the best solutions, according to a draft request for information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov. […]

Law enforcement agencies that use forensic algorithms to aid in criminal investigations face numerous challenges, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), including difficulty interpreting and communicating results, as well as addressing potential bias or misuse. […]

While most Federal agencies are at least dipping toes into the artificial intelligence (AI) pool, new MeriTalk research finds some are struggling to incorporate the technology more broadly into operations. […]

According to a joint advisory from the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), hackers from the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS) military unit – widely known as Fancy Bear or APT28 – utilized Kubernetes clusters to infiltrate targets in their global brute force campaign from mid-2019 through early 2021. […]

The White House and key Federal agencies have been working since July 2 to assist in the response to the Kaseya ransomware attack, as President Biden gets set to meet this week with an interagency group taking a longer look at the ransomware problem. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued its artificial intelligence (AI) accountability framework for Federal agencies and other entities to ensure responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable AI. […]

The Defense Department (DoD) said today it was taking steps to cancel its existing Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud services contract after three years of work that left the contract tied up in court, and the Pentagon without benefit from the $10 billion deal awarded to Microsoft. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) onboarded over 300 new cybersecurity employees, and made an additional 500 tentative job offers, during its 60-day Cybersecurity Workforce Sprint, exceeding the sprint’s original goal by 50 percent. […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking vendors to provide engineering and technical capabilities to help manage the bureau’s critical data centers across five U.S. locations. At the same time, the FBI’s Data Center Hardware and Operating Systems Section (DCHOSS) is developing a Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for IT Professional Engineering Services to support this effort.  […]