Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a Nov. 7 letter to U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy expressing concern about the use of China-owned social media platforms including TikTok by Army personnel in their personal and official capacities. […]
MITRE Engenuity announced on Nov. 12 the launch of its Center for Threat-Informed Defense, which describes itself as a “collaboration with industry to improve cyber defense at scale through collaborative research and development.” […]
As part of its Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is looking to replace the application it uses for annuity claims and move from legacy software to a new web app, according to two requests for information released November 12. […]
As the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues working toward a paperless future, the agency has already completed online filing systems for several documents and, and is touting successes with its online account system. […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a target for cybercriminals, but the agency is failing to adequately protect itself, according to a Nov. 13 report by the NASA Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]
Amid new mandates for government data use and cloud migration, data management is top of mind for agency leaders. But cost, infrastructure modernization and threat prevention remain a challenge. MeriTalk spoke with David Bailey, senior director of U.S. Public Sector Technical Sales at Veritas, about how agencies can plan their first steps toward a cohesive, sustainable data strategy, as well as the factors behind today’s unprecedented data growth. […]
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved by voice vote today the Harvesting American Cybersecurity Knowledge through Education Act (HACKED Act) (S 2775), which aims to boost the Federal cybersecurity workforce with new guidelines for agencies, clearer career paths for the workforce, and improved coordination between agencies. […]
A bill introduced by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Nov. 8 would establish a new Center of Excellence (CoE) and fund elections systems research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). […]
The State Department is looking to develop IT professionals through the Foreign Affairs Information Technology (FAIT) Fellowship. […]
Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., introduced a bill in the House on Nov. 8 that would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enact regulations requiring public inspection files to be available online in a machine-readable format. […]
Election security will remain an operational priority for the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) “for the foreseeable future,” a CISA official said at a Nov. 12 event. […]
A Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) interagency workgroup – focused at least in part on supply chain and control systems security issues – aims to have an executive committee meeting early next year to discuss cybersecurity challenges in both the public and private sectors. […]
Dorris Consulting is seeking nominations for its 2019 Service to the Citizen Awards. […]
A new study from consulting firm Deloitte finds that the lion’s share of artificial intelligence (AI) technology use cases being pursued by public sector organizations involve quality control, cybersecurity, and workforce management applications. […]
The Brennan Center for Justice argued in a Nov. 12 report that the Federal government needs to hold election technology vendors to higher cybersecurity standards in order to receive Federal certification. To that end, the Center offered up a new framework for oversight. […]
Officials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Defense (DoD) previewed their agencies’ latest efforts on supply chain security guidelines at the CyberCon 2019 conference today. […]
The results of the annual Federal Employee Viewpoints Survey (FEVS) show a continued discontent with the Federal government’s career advancement processes, and a negative impact on agencies from the partial Federal government shutdown that spanned 35 days and ended Jan. 25. […]
Microsoft said on Nov. 11 that it will “honor” throughout its U.S. operations the “core protections” contained in the California Consumer Privacy Act that is set to take effect in January 2020. […]
In a Nov. 7 letter, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone to conduct a cybersecurity audit of mobile voting app Voatz to “determine whether it can reliably protect the votes of U.S. servicemembers against foreign hacking.” […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken an ad-hoc approach to cloud adoption instead of following its cloud strategy, and did not fully implement security measures, according to a report from the SEC’s inspector general released November 7. […]
INCOMPAS, a trade association representing internet and competitive networks, elected five new members to join its board of directors through 2021, at its annual membership meeting on Nov. 8. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Nov. 8 providing updates and recommendations on the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). The report offered two recommendations for the Treasury Department. […]
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on Nov. 1 released an audit plan for $380 million grant funding appropriated in 2018, which includes audits of election security grant funds for six states. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has begun the transition process of moving its solicitations from the FedBizOpps website to the beta.SAM.gov system, according to a November 7 press release from the agency. […]
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) is featuring government adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies among 12 “grand challenges” that the group has identified as the biggest challenges that face governments through the 2020s. […]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a Federal Register posting that it plans to develop a new system that will serve as its central Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) record repository for DOJ Identity Services. […]
A new study suggests that organizations should shift their cybersecurity focus to defending non-Windows infrastructure, such as Linux, while deemphasizing attribution of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) to any particular nation-state. […]
The global shortage for cybersecurity professionals reached 4.07 million and the U.S. gap nears 500,000, according to last week’s report by the non-profit membership association for information security leaders, (ISC)2. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate has announced the award of a contract to Mavennet Systems to adapt its oil and gas industry blockchain security technology for use by DHS’s Custom and Border Protection organization to track cross-border oil imports. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, said today he would consider adding compliance with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act’s (IDEA) website modernization standards to the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard produced twice a year by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. […]