A report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) released Monday argues that devices infected by botnets need to be eliminated. The report proposed increasing regulations and holding more organizations accountable for malicious botnet activity to achieve its goal. […]
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on Nov. 19 seeking public comment on “criteria for identifying emerging technologies” that are essential to U.S. national security and that may be included in possible future export control regulations. […]
On Monday, defense ministers from 25 European Union (EU) countries signed a military pact to create a joint electronic warfare capability project, among other initiatives. […]
Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Chris Coons, D.-Del., said they plan to introduce a bill that would create and help fund a tax-preferred savings plan that workers can use to retrain or “upskill” as automation and other technology advances continue to impact the employment market. […]
Christopher Krebs, head of the newly minted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offered his vision for the agency’s future, and how component-agency status will allow the organization to reach its full potential, during an event hosted by the Chamber of Commerce on November 16. […]
The Department of Transportation’s (DoT) Inspector General has flagged several broad cybersecurity categories as “top management challenges” for the agency in FY 2019, including what it called some “longstanding security weaknesses.” […]
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) on Monday released an interactive tool that consumers, businesses, and governments can use to “measure and quantify” the deployment of the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) email security protocol. […]
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, has finally secured his seat in the next session of Congress, as his challenger, Gina Ortiz Jones, conceded the race on Monday. […]
Hackers with ties to the Russian government are using a spear-phishing campaign to impersonate Department of State employees, according to cybersecurity firms FireEye and CrowdStrike. […]
Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud, announced Friday that she will be leaving her post in early 2019–a specific date was not mentioned. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen emphasized the need for industry and government to consistently work together to thwart threats and defend critical infrastructure within an agenda of “relentless resilience,” during a speech on Nov. 16 at an event organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) on Friday announced that S&T and the Dutch government are each putting up $1.25 million to fund “collaborative cybersecurity research and development” across five U.S.-Dutch research teams. […]
NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, a broadband industry group that represents more than 800 independent and community-based telecommunications companies in rural and small-town America, announced Friday that it elected new board members at its fall board meeting. […]
Like other military services and Department of Defense components, the Air Force is finding itself overloaded these days with streaming intelligence data, and is looking to machine learning and artificial intelligence to help its analysts quickly put all that information to practical use. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs faced congressional scrutiny on Thursday for delayed payments to veterans following the passage of the Colmery Act, also known as the Forever GI Bill, as House members called on VA IT officials to explain how the system could not handle the additional workloads and criticized the department’s response. […]
A lack of incentives for House members, and a declining count of professional committee and member staff with the necessary experience, are combining to dampen oversight activities in the House, panelists said Nov. 16 at an event organized by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). […]
Michael Horowitz, inspector general of the Justice Department and chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), said today that the Oversight.gov website launched by CIGIE now has reports from 70 of the 73 Federal inspectors general, up from 67 IGs when the site was unveiled about a year ago. […]
Creation of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)–long a goal of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stand up a dedicated component agency focused on cybersecurity–became a reality Friday as President Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018 into law. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) plans on proposing new rules in the Federal Register next spring for Federal contractors that would put the responsibility on contractors to report any cyber incident that potentially compromises systems or information owned by the government. […]
In a letter released Thursday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., questioned the Trump administration’s commitment to election security and pressed administration officials to communicate more clearly with Congress about the issue. […]
The Office of Financial Research (OFR), which is an independent bureau within the Department of the Treasury, said in its 2018 Annual Report to Congress on Thursday that cybersecurity “a key risk” to U.S. financial stability. […]
Bulgarian police announced Nov. 8 that they have arrested Alexander Zhukov, a Russian national and suspected cybercriminal, on behalf of the United States. […]
Lesley Field, the acting administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), laid out the key areas where OMB is trying to improve IT acquisition, and detailed the initiatives underway. […]
Federal agencies need to get into second gear in their efforts to defend against insider threats, as outlined in the “Insider Threat Program Maturity Framework” released this month by the National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF). Agencies must move past the minimum standards many have established and become more proactive in countering what the task force said is a dynamic threat that has moved beyond basic defenses, according to the framework. […]
The private sector is the prime driver for Congress to take up data privacy legislation in 2019, industry panelists said Thursday at an event organized by Bloomberg Government. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Nov. 13 published a Request for Information seeking comment on its “NIST Privacy Framework: An Enterprise Risk Management Tool” that the agency expects to issue in early 2019. […]
Speaking at an event organized by Bloomberg Government, Rep. Eshoo indicated that her concerns are rooted in the impact of social media and other content that inspires or leads to violence such as the Oct. 27 murders at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. […]
IT officials from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) detailed progress their agencies have made so far in utilizing grants awarded by the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), and highlighted the benefits of TMF funding including the ability to repay the working capital fund through cost savings. […]
Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, who will be stepping aside in January as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee after leading the panel since 2013, said today he expects the committee’s core policy interests and aims will continue under the direction of the panel’s incoming chairman, presumably the current ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced Wednesday that the GSA Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Information Technology Category (ITC), IT Schedule 70 program is restructuring its Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services (HACS) Special Item Numbers (SINs). […]