The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took quick action to secure Domain Name System (DNS) services on its websites, meeting the deadlines set out in Emergency Directive 19-01, according to an audit conducted by FDIC’s inspector general and released September 24. […]
A bill that would amend the Federal Power Act to bolster the defense of the U.S. electric grid was introduced to the U.S. Senate on Sept. 26. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) is initiating a program that aims to accelerated distributed applications and improve network stack performance “by a factor of 100 through the creation of clean-slate networking approaches,” according to a Sept. 26 news release. […]
The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization held a hearing today to discuss the future of scheduling at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and implementing a commercial off the shelf scheduling solution. […]
A bipartisan group of members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced a bill today to provide $1 billion in aid to remove prohibited equipment from the networks of small communications providers and prevent the usage of Federal funds for “any company that poses a national security risk to American communications networks.” […]
The Senate voted today 82-15 to approve a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the Federal government through Nov. 21. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified in a new report several cybersecurity risks to the U.S. electric grid and called upon the Department of Energy (DoE) to develop an improved Federal strategy to protect against cyber threats to the grid. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee approved legislation on Sept. 25 a cyber committee within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]
The Senate on Sept. 24 passed a bill that would increase the Federal government’s ability to respond to and aid government agencies and private-sector companies that are involved in major cyber incidents. […]
The Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is looking for assistance in developing “AI-based knowledge graphing” that collects strategic activity abroad from open source web-based content for analysis and reporting. […]
A plethora of still-developing advanced technologies – plus new systemic approaches that recognize the growing dominance of cloud and managed services – will be key drivers of security improvements for Federal agencies several years from now as they continue to implement the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. […]
With the upcoming release of the Federal Data Strategy’s final action plan on the horizon, Federal chief data officers (CDOs) agreed on Sept. 25 that the strategy holds plenty of promising features to advance their work, including an official CDO council that will help them share ideas and experiences. […]
Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury Amy B. Edwards highlighted today how her department went about simplifying the process for which customers can see how funds are spent. […]
Through the adoption of modern security technologies, Federal agencies are adopting security solutions that map to a Zero Trust architecture, even if the agency isn’t yet ready to pursue a full Zero Trust model, according to new research from MeriTalk. […]
Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., on Sept. 24 introduced H.R. 4458, the Cybersecurity and Financial System Resilience Act of 2019, to combat cybersecurity threats facing the Federal Reserve System. […]
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Engagement Center and the Center for Global Regulatory Cooperation (GRC) released 10 policy principles to govern the use of and regulate artificial intelligence (AI) on Sept. 23. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Defense Department’s (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) announced today they are teaming up for a “discovery sprint” as part of GSA’s Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative. […]
The Smithsonian Institution (SI) made some progress in its Fiscal Year 2018 FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) audit, but still sat at around a Level 2 on the FISMA scale, according to a report released September 23 by the Smithsonian Office of Inspector General. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) have released a draft cybersecurity guide for energy sector asset management. NCCoE is seeking comments on the draft through Nov. 25. […]
Amidst the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the United States and 26 other countries released a joint statement on advancing responsible state behavior in cyberspace on Sept. 23. […]
It’s an interesting time to take stock of DHS CISA’S Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program – the big question, seven years in, is CDM improving Federal cyber security? That’s what Hill leaders want to know – and that’s why MeriTalk surveyed 160 Federal government and industry CDM stakeholders to grade the program’s effectiveness. […]
The U.S. Army may release its updated modernization strategy as soon as October, and no later than the end of this year, Army Futures Command (AFC) Deputy Commander General Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley said today. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) improved its performance on the department’s FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) audit, going from Level 3 in Fiscal Year 2017 to Level 4 in FY2018, an agency inspector general’s report issued this month shows. […]
A new report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) finds that FHFA doesn’t have an agency-wide cybersecurity incident data analysis program based on a consistent data set, and that it lacks sufficient information to conduct trend or other time-series analyses for security purposes. […]
Microsoft announced Sept. 20 that it is extending free security support for Federally certified voting systems running Windows 7 through the 2020 election. Microsoft had previously announced it was ceasing to support Windows 7. […]
The first High Impact Service Provider (HISP) Action Plans on customer experience (CX) have been released by Performance.gov to highlight public-facing services in accordance with 2018 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11 Section 280 guidance and the President’s Management Agenda. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the Federal CIO Council’s architecture subgroup, released a draft report on zero-trust architectures and the use cases and deployment models where zero-trust can improve cybersecurity. […]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has appointed Dr. Margaret Martonosi to lead the agency’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). […]
In the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), the Justice Department was tasked with combating cyber-enabled threats and attacks by “conducting 8,400 computer intrusion program deterrences, detections, disruptions, and dismantlements, while successfully resolving 90 percent of its cyber defendant cases.” According to a Q3 FY2019 update, the Justice Department has not only met its quarterly targets, but it has also exceeded them. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced in a press release today the appointment of Kshemendra Paul as the agency’s chief data officer (CDO). […]