DoD

Through multiple efforts in both the executive and legislative branches of government, the Federal government is focused on supporting and adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, said Federal CIO Suzette Kent on Wednesday. […]

Machine learning AI-min

When it comes to getting artificial intelligence systems to be more “human,” robots apparently have to learn to walk before they can run.The Pentagon’s top research arm recently hit a milestone in enabling a machine to learn without having to go through a lot of reprogramming at each stage, like they do now. And they did it with a robotic limb teaching itself to walk. […]

data privacy, people, personal data, binary

Panelists representing small businesses advocated for Federal uniformity and preempt over state data privacy laws and against data protection regulations that would disproportionately burden smaller companies at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection hearing today. […]

cloud computing concept -min
capitol washington dc senate house congress-min

In one of many budget hearings taking place on the Hill this week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government heard from Russell T. Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding the agency’s FY2020 budget request. While the bulk of the hearing didn’t address IT issues, Vought did touch on IT spending, IT modernization, and the President’s Management Agenda (PMA). […]

Without a clear governance structure, the implementation of the DATA Act (the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014) has suffered and new guidance might not be reaching agencies, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week. […]

Kevin Cox CDM Program Manager Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program DEFEND

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program office is preparing to work with five Federal government agencies on data protection management efforts, CDM Program Manager Kevin Cox said today at an event organized by RSA and the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC). […]

federal workforce worker hired-min

The Department of Homeland Security’s plan for filling the cyber talent gap is intended to focus on talent, more so than established credentials, which means leaving behind some of the traditional methods of hiring, paying, and retaining skilled employees. At the bottom line, DHS wants to take off the General Schedule handcuffs. […]

The Department of Education announced its intent to extend its current contract for mobility services on Monday due to the delay in the Authority to Operate (ATO) process for vendors on the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract. […]

A recent audit by the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Office of Inspector General found that GSA’s Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Program Management Office (PMO) has not yet established an adequate structure to assist the Federal government with adoption of secure cloud services. […]

Robot

The Japanese seem to have robots that do it all. They’ve made bots that can pitch a baseball, play the violin, mimic a toddler, or even cook up some pancakes. But Japanese United Nations (U.N.) Ambassador Nobushige Takamizawa drew an ethical line in the country’s robotics development when he said today that Japan has not and will not develop fully automated weapons systems. […]

ransomware

Ransomware strain LockerGoga has struck two U.S.-based companies in recent days. On March 22, Hexion, a provider of thermoset resins, and Momentive, a provider of silicones and advanced materials, both announced they were the victims of a ransomware attack, which experts believe is the LockerGoga strain. […]

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is creating a $2.1 billion, multiple-award contract to develop four service areas, particularly for information technology (IT) services and capabilities, according to a recent DIA solicitation document. […]

GSA General Services Administration

Norwich University Applied Research Institutes (NUARI) has been awarded $5.9 million by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to expand its Distributed Environment for Critical Infrastructure Decision-Making Exercises (DECIDE) cyber-training platform. […]

Department of Transportation

The Transportation Department’s (DoT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the department had the second lowest maturity level for its information security systems, and that its cybersecurity functions were found to be inadequate in a Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) audit released last week. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an alert last week after it was discovered that as many as 750,000 medical heart devices contain critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities. […]

Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T) has pioneered a graduate school program that emphasizes data science, cyber-physical, and cybersecurity research – particularly on the front of cloud computing – to a degree that has earned it Federal recognition. […]

FEMA
DHS Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is storing its research and development project information in a way that is difficult to identify and track, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Thursday. […]

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) believes that the agency violated the Federal Records Act when it destroyed an employee’s notes that document a security report of EPA’s cloud service provider. […]

DOJ Department of Justice
NIST

At the quarterly meeting of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, researchers said that NIST was working on a new effort to emphasize secure software development on its Cybersecurity Framework. […]

President Trump is poised to nominate Michael Kratsios to become United States Chief Technology Officer (CTO), according to numerous press reports that cite unnamed White House officials. […]

Health and Human Services HHS

Facebook announced that it kept hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ passwords “stored in a readable format” within its internal data storage systems in a press release today. Facebook said it has already fixed the error. Although the passwords were not exposed to anyone external to Facebook, the company said its login systems were designed […]

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