The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted to approve a handful of bills that place a strong emphasis on cybersecurity, IT supply chain security, and the enhancement of digital citizen services. […]
As the Federal government shifts its cloud strategy from “Cloud First” to “Cloud Smart,” IT leaders at the Infor Government Forum described how their previous cloud migration efforts have shifted their agencies’ mindsets and brought new successes to their department. […]
The Department of Defense’s release last week of its upgraded cyber strategy understandably drew attention for its focus on the threats from China and Russia in a re-emerging, artificial intelligence-fueled great power competition reminiscent of the Cold War. […]
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s cybersecurity and personnel subcommittees held a joint hearing today to examine the cyber operational readiness of the Department of Defense and heard from leaders of both the military and civilian side of the DoD cyber force about the mounting challenges they face. […]
The House late Tuesday voted to approve H.R. 6229, which would reauthorize the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). […]
The House late Tuesday voted to approve H.R. 6735, a bill that directs the Homeland Security Secretary to establish a vulnerability disclosure policy for the agency’s websites. […]
A gaggle of tech and communications sector bellwethers presented a united front today at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on data privacy and protection issues, saying they support a bill to address those issues but sharing strong preferences for federal legislation that would preempt state law and appoint the Federal Trade Commission as the chief watchdog. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved by a 3-1, party-line vote a series of steps that its Republican-majority commissioners argue will speed the pace of infrastructure installations necessary for carriers to provide 5G wireless services, but which have drawn strong protest from states and localities in the run-up to today’s vote who object to restrictions on their ability to govern. […]
House IT Subcommittee Chair Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Ranking Member Robin Kelly, D-Ill., today introduced legislation to reauthorize, rename, codify, and elevate the role of the Federal CIO, a position initially created as part of the E-Government Act of 2002. The bill, called the Federal CIO Authorization Act of 2018, is designed to create a “clearer IT reporting structure within the Administration,” the lawmakers said in a release. […]
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has appointed Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and former Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., to the recently created Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a 14-member public-private panel charged with developing consensus and actionable strategy to protect and defend the U.S. in cyberspace. […]
President Trump on Tuesday announced the appointment of Victoria Espinel to a four-year term on the White House’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. […]
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has issued a request for public comment “on ways to advance consumer privacy while protecting prosperity and innovation.” The comment solicitation, NTIA indicated, is unlikely to lead to any rulemaking process at least in the near term. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday released new draft guidance that aims to address both the cybersecurity and privacy risks stemming from the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. […]
The Defense Department (DoD) has renewed its focus on equipping the warfighter with the best technology. Alongside new changes, they’re proceeding at machine speed to streamline that process. IT innovation through audacious experimentation has been a DoD hallmark throughout the years, and has led to storied research and development (R&D) accomplishments. But on that path, some Pentagon projects have gone amiss. […]
LaVerne Council, national managing principal of Enterprise Technology Strategy and Innovation at Grant Thornton, spoke today at the Infor Government Forum about the future opportunities afforded by artificial intelligence (AI), and sought along the way to debunk myths that have inspired some apprehension from the public about the emerging technology. […]
Funding needed for further U.S. research and development of quantum information sciences (QIS) and the computing and other advances that QIS is expected to yield, along with the pressing need to develop a highly skilled workforce to leverage those expected advances, dominated discussion today at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee examining the Department of Energy’s (DoE) efforts in the QIS field. […]
The Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)–formerly known as DIUx–has selected Michael Brown as its new director. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced they are partnering as part of the GSA’s Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative. […]
Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., today released a new white paper on artificial intelligence (AI) that urges the Federal government to increase its engagement with the technology. The paper focuses its attention on four key issue areas–workforce, privacy, biases, and malicious use of AI–and provides concrete recommendations for each area. […]
The rate of cloud adoption in the Federal government may not be keeping up with the hype around the new technology or the demands of IT professionals at Federal agencies, according to new research conducted by MeriTalk. […]
The software industry group BSA | The Software Alliance offered its support for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Act in the Senate. […]
Google released their framework for privacy legislation, which highlights providing transparency, securing personal information, and giving people access to their personal information as key requirements of a data regulation framework. […]
A new “strategic overview” document published by the White House’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) says the U.S. government’s efforts to advance quantum information science (QIS) will “focus on a science-first approach that aims to identify and solve Grand Challenges: problems whose solutions enable transformative scientific and industrial progress.” That focus, NSTC said, will […]
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Politico to expect an updated version of the Secure Elections Act to hit the Senate floor next month. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General criticized the agency’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement organization for failing to make timely deliveries of IT equipment and arrange for proper IT support staffing in connection with growth in the number of state and local law enforcement agencies participating in ICE’s 287(g) program under which state and local agencies assist ICE in immigration enforcement missions in their jurisdictions. […]
The National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) at the Department of Homeland Security held its first in a series of webinars “on protecting enterprise network infrastructure devices” today. […]
The Office of Management and Budget today released a draft of its new Cloud Smart strategy, marking the first update to White House guidance on Federal agency cloud adoption since 2011. With the new draft strategy the administration has broadly highlighted three areas–security, procurement, and workforce–as the foundational areas of the strategy and where it feels that updated guidance is most necessary. […]
A multi-agency appropriations bill signed into law by President Trump on Friday provides funding for a new office at the Department of Energy focused on protecting critical infrastructure, along with a range of smaller IT-related projects. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Friday that Ruslans Bondars, the operator of counter- antivirus service “Scan4you,” was sentenced to 14 years in prison. […]
A new survey conducted by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, also known as (ISC)², found that 50 percent of well-performing organizations surveyed have successfully recruited government cybersecurity talent. […]