The House Homeland Security Committee today voted to approve two bills important to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and its leadership and legal authorities. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Jan. 28 that it filed for a temporary restraining order against five telecommunications companies and three individuals who it says are responsible for carrying hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls to American consumers. […]
ThunderCat Technology has been doing business and providing IT solutions for the Federal government for over 10 years, specializing in cloud, cybersecurity, DevOps, data infrastructure, and so much more. MeriTalk sat down with ThunderCat’s Senior Cloud Architect Randy Pierce to get his insights and thoughts on where hybrid and multi-cloud environments are headed in 2020. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced a bill Jan. 28 to give Federal employees a 3.5 percent pay raise in 2021. […]
United Kingdom authorities said today they will allow communications service providers to use in their networks a limited amount of equipment made by “high risk vendors,” and impose restrictions on more extensive use of equipment from those firms. […]
Mona Sedky, an attorney in the Justice Department’ Computer Crime and Intellectual property section, billed herself today as the “voice of doom,” and lived up to that title in describing the potential security downsides of voice cloning technologies at a Federal Trade Commission workshop. […]
State Department CIO Stuart McGuigan shared today how an IT oversight council and increased emphasis on data strategies are helping the agency improve effectiveness and efficiency of its services. […]
The Pentagon has begun the search for a Chief Data Officer (CDO) that will report directly to the Defense Department’s (DoD) Office of the CIO (OCIO) as the department begins transitioning the CDO position to OICO. […]
While AT&T is on track to meet all nationwide First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) milestones, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) this week flagged schedule, communication, and end-user satisfaction management issues that it said could stop the program from reaching its full potential. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) released two draft guides on data management and protection in the wake of cyberthreats. […]
As Federal agencies continue the long march away from on-premise networks to the world of cloud and SaaS, the payoff of that migration remains evident, as do a daunting range of complexities that come with the new network architectures. MeriTalk sat down with two Cisco veterans – Distinguished Architect Craig Hill, and Systems Architect Chris Hocker – to talk about cloud ready networks and how Federal agencies can best approach the network architectures necessary to realize the full potential of the cloud paradigm. […]
The Jan. 31 public comment date is fast approaching for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) draft guidance documents for version 3.0 of its Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Countering Weapon of Mass Destruction Acquisition Division (CWMD) is seeking cloud software engineering services to help with its mission of combating the use of WMDs. […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) is launching a survey of its private sector partners, according to a Jan. 16 Federal Register posting. […]
Sue Gordon, who stepped down last year as principal deputy director for National Intelligence, has reached a consulting arrangement with Microsoft. […]
A group of privacy and civil liberties groups wrote a letter to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) urging the board to demand that the President and Secretary of Homeland Security suspend the use of facial recognition systems by Federal agencies. […]
A National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) draft report on a new program to standardized and centralize cybersecurity regulations is now open for public comment. […]
In a short note on its website, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encouraged cloud administrators and users to review the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Jan. 22 guidance on mitigating cloud vulnerabilities. […]
The Defense Acquisition University (DAU), a training organization within the Department of Defense (DoD), wants to put some artificial intelligence (AI) into its learning environment to respond to real-time student needs and improve effectiveness and efficiency. […]
Government, academia, and industry leaders are coming together to celebrate Data Privacy Day on Jan. 28 and raise awareness about the importance of personal and agencywide data protection. […]
An Office of Inspector General (OIG) report for the National Security Agency (NSA) found that while the agency has made progress in establishing the full scope of CIO authorities within the agency, the defined authorities and responsibilities of the position remain ambiguous. […]
A new report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) says that the agency made some headway on addressing IT problems in Fiscal Year 2019, but not enough to quell the internal watchdog’s concerns that lingering issues are leaving the agency exposed to major cybersecurity vulnerabilities. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is often spotlighted for its veteran-facing modernization efforts aimed at better service delivery, but as Undersecretary for Veterans Benefits Paul Lawrence explained, the agency is also making numerous internal changes to speed its transformation. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced initial publication of its Federal Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Program Playbook that aims to assist agencies in establishing new RPA programs, and provide guidance for existing programs. […]
The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced its intent to acquire a role-based cybersecurity training platform for employees in a Jan. 23 solicitation. […]
Secretary of Defense Mike Esper said today that Department of Defense (DoD) partnerships with the private sector are vital to the Pentagon’s aim to remain the global leader in emerging defense technologies. […]
The U.S. Air Force is almost ready to release its digital skills learning program – dubbed the Digital U Strategy – according to the service branch’s Deputy CIO Bill Marion. […]
According to the Defense Department (DoD) Deputy CIO for Information Enterprise Peter Ranks, cloud computing is the foundation to unlock the full potential of technological advances for the department. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Chris Krebs told the nation’s mayors this week that Federal government needs to ensure that state and local governments have the resources needed to combat growing cybersecurity concerns, and said that heightened security threats from Iran and elsewhere may help provide governments with the leverage to get that done. […]
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Jan. 22 that the Federal government’s backlog of security clearance has fallen to near 200,000, from its peak of 725,000 backlog applications in 2018. […]