The State Department is making progress in its IT modernization effort, but not meeting the goals it set for fiscal year 2019 as part of the President’s Management Agenda, an update to the agency’s priority goals shows. […]
The White House’s new approach to shared services remains on track for full implementation during fiscal year 2020, according to an update to the Sharing Quality Services cross-agency priority (CAP) Goal on the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) released September 19. […]
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said today that the threat posed by Chinese government-supported network equipment makers including Huawei to the global 5G communications ecosystem is unprecedented. One solution to displace Huawei equipment from communications networks, the senator said, may be government-industry cooperation to make cheaper communications gear available to carriers. […]
Agencies are mostly making progress on the White House’s IT modernization goals – with many goals completed, most remaining goals on track, and a few challenge areas – according to a President’s Management Agenda (PMA) update released September 19. […]
Federal cyber officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Cybersecurity of Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) highlighted today that IT modernization and implementing OMB’s guidance are some of their biggest priorities. […]
As the 2020 election cycle revs up, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs said today that he believes new National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien will take security seriously and will allow CISA a great opportunity to continue improving cybersecurity efforts. […]
The House voted this afternoon to approve a nearly two-month stopgap spending bill that would push current Federal funding levels beyond the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year. The bill, H.R. 4378, passed in a vote of 301-123. The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week, sending it to the White House for President Trump’s signature. […]
More than a year after the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator position was eliminated, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., is urging the Trump administration to reestablish the role, according to a statement released Sept. 18. The recent push comes as President Trump named Robert O’Brien as his new National Security Advisor, following the resignation of John Bolton. […]
Federal cybersecurity officials spoke about the strategies they’re pursuing to address workforce issues within their agencies during a Sept. 18 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Summit panel. […]
A bipartisan group of senators and representatives are looking to address gaps in Congress’ technology expertise by bringing back the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and making it responsive to member needs, according to a Sept. 18 press release. […]
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Sept. 18 expressed general support for Federal data legislation to protect consumer privacy and to preempt state-level data privacy laws, but also cautioned that she does not want to see the U.S. copy the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) framework. […]
A Social Security Administration (SSA) audit to determine the effectiveness of controls identifying potentially fraudulent Internet Claims (iClaims) found the controls to be “generally effective,” but also said that the number of undetected fraudulent iClaims is unknown. […]
The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today that the spate of ransomware attacks that hit school systems in Texas and Louisiana over the past month “got pretty close” to qualifying as a “large-scale cyber event,” which he said begs the need to further develop Federal doctrine about how to respond to major events. […]
Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., a long-time advocate for stronger data privacy rules and current sponsor of the Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act, said today it’s unlikely that Congress will take action on this issue this year. […]
The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy opens the agency up to more vulnerabilities, data exfiltration, and uneducated users accessing sensitive information, according to a September 12 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies – and their potentially huge impacts on the economy and the American workforce – are generating plenty of buzz on Capitol Hill but not yet enough to solidify any large-scale legislative agendas that would impact the technology and its use. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the first-annual President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition, an interagency effort to identify, challenge, and reward the “best personnel supporting cybersecurity and cyber excellence” in the government. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing rules that would make it less complicated for managers to fire Federal employees, in accordance with President Trump’s executive order on the Federal workforce. […]
The Senate version of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes multiple provisions in the bill’s report that push the Department of Defense (DoD) to make greater investments in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI). […]
The Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government today approved the FY2020 Financial Services and General Government Funding bill that zeros out funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) for FY2020, a source with knowledge confirmed. […]
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School announced today the appointment of directors for its cyber-related projects: Lauren Zabierek will run the Center’s Cyber Project; Maria Barsallo Lynch will head its Defending Digital Democracy Project; and Julia Voo will run its China Cyber Policy Initiative. […]
The Department of Treasury released a cloud acquisition roadmap based on the department’s cloud strategy that took effect July 1, 2019, according to special notice. […]
Federal government spending on artificial intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) is poised to double in Fiscal Year 2020 from its total in calendar year 2016, U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios said today at an event organized by Politico. […]
With Department of Homeland Security (DHS) looking to close its Data Center 2 (DC2) by June 2020, DHS Infrastructure Services Division Executive Director Carlene Ileto provided progress updates indicating that most DHS components are in the process of or planning to move their data to the cloud by the DC2 closure deadline. […]
Accenture has announced the appointment of Aaron Faulkner as head of the Federal Cyber practice at Accenture Federal Services. He is the vice president of cybersecurity at ECS. […]
The National Academy of Public Administration on Sept. 16 announced the selection of 51 leaders in the field of public administration for the group’s 2019 Class of Academy Fellows. […]
Although extensive national dialogue over data privacy legislation have yet to yield a tangible Federal policy, data privacy experts who have worked with lawmakers provided insight at the Brookings Institution on Sept. 16 about the evolving nature of data privacy concerns in the country, as well as further challenges and policy areas a Federal law will have to address. […]
A sampling of many of the most important private-sector players supplying technology and services through the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program reveals optimism about the pace of Federal agency implementation of the program. […]
Formalizing the roles of Federal agency chief data officers (CDO) – a relatively new position for many Federal agencies – is well underway but still far from finished, two agency CDOs indicated on Sept. 16 at the Professional Services Council’s Tech Trends Conference. […]
With the new-found ability to focus on just one major Federal executive post instead of two, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director Margaret Weichert said today she is turning her full-time focus to advancing several aspects of the President’s Management Agenda published by the Trump administration last year. […]