McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today released a new report about modernizing Social Security Numbers (SSN) in light of growing privacy and security concerns over using SSNs as a de facto personal identifier. The […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense announced a joint agreement between Defense Secretary James Mattis and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to work together on the new electronic health records (EHR) systems in both departments. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General said in an unclassified summary report dated Sept. 28 that it has given the agency’s Science and Technology Directorate a total of nine recommendations that it believes would strengthen S&T’s management of insider threat risks […]

The chairmen of the House Intelligence and Oversight and Government Reform committees have asked for classified briefings from top U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies on a recent Bloomberg Businessweek report that Chinese hackers infiltrated numerous U.S. companies and government agencies through a supply-chain hardware hack involving implantation in network equipment of a chip that can route data back to China. […]

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee heard testimony today detailing the workings of data privacy laws in Europe and California–specifically the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)–amid a growing groundswell for Congress to work on a national data privacy law for the U.S. […]

A Defense Department spokesperson responded late Tuesday to a report from the Government Accountability Office that DoD faces challenges in protecting weapons systems from cyber attacks by saying the agency is “continuously strengthening” its defense cybersecurity posture. […]

Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program Manager Kevin Cox said today that all 23 CFO Act agencies covered under CDM are now connected and feeding data to the Federal government-wide cybersecurity threat dashboard. […]

Regardless of whether Chinese hackers really did infiltrate more than two dozen U.S. companies and multiple government agencies through a supply-chain hardware hack, the bombshell report by Bloomberg Businessweek throws light on an ongoing problem facing the Department of Defense, among others. […]

The Government Accountability Office warned in a report issued today that the Defense Department “faces mounting challenges in protecting its weapons systems from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats,” and, because of its “late start” in prioritizing weapons systems cybersecurity, needs to “sustain its momentum” in developing and implementing key weapon systems security initiatives. […]

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he is eyeing the post-midterm election “lame duck” period for further movement through Congress of his 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA) bill that would empower Federal agency CTOs and CIOs to modernize and improve their websites and citizen services. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced today that Romeo Vasile Chita, a Romanian national, was returned to the United States last Friday to face Federal charges of racketeering, wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to launder money, and conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit services charges. […]

A new survey from One Identity, a maker of identity and access management (IAM) solutions, finds that 77 percent of IT security professionals polled in the United states, Europe, and elsewhere said it would be “easy” for them to steal sensitive information from their companies if they were to leave those organizations. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently founded an artificial intelligence (AI) community of interest (COI) for anyone in DHS with an “interest in the subject.” […]

The hype around cloud services in the Federal government could lead to substantial increases in adoption over the next year, according to new research conducted by MeriTalk. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) deadline for agencies to adopt Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) and have policies set to “enforcement” levels is one week away, and new research from Valimail says only half of agencies have deployed the new standards. […]

A report issued late last month by the Defense Department (DoD) finds that the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is facing an “unprecedented set of challenges” that are eroding the nation’s DIB and manufacturing sectors and threatening DoD’s “ability to be ready for the ‘fight tonight’ and to retool for great power competition.” […]

A new report from a group of Federal government and private sector experts details how “precision agriculture,” or agriculture that uses connected technology to improve efficiency, faces new cybersecurity threats and a low degree of awareness in the industry to combat them. […]

Cerner announced a number of partnerships to support the company in its $10 billion contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to modernize the VA’s electronic health records system. […]

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 28 signed into law S.B. 327, which will ban companies from selling Internet-connected devices with weak or default passwords, such as “Password” or “1234567.” Instead, beginning on Jan. 1, 2020, all devices must have a “preprogrammed password [that] is unique to each device manufactured.” A primary concern with weak pre-programmed passwords is that users don’t change them to strong, unique passwords after purchasing the device. […]

Google announced today plans to shut down its Google+ social media platform in August 2019, and that it patched a vulnerability in the service in March that potentially exposed Google+ user data. […]

Department of Defense CIO Dana Deasy described how DoD is approaching cloud services, including the Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative (JEDI), and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies during an interview on “Government Matters” on Sunday. […]

The U.S. Navy said it increased General Dynamics Information Technology’s contract ceiling from $177 million to $270.2 million for the Personnel Modernization (PERSMOD) contract. […]

Apple told congressional leaders in a letter dated today that a story last week by Bloomberg Businessweek–reporting that chips made by a Chinese firm and used in Apple equipment were engineered to enable backdoor data transmissions to China–is “not true.” […]

The White House on Friday announced the appointment of Margaret Weichert as acting director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), replacing Jeff Pon at the helm of the agency. […]

Federal and private sector leaders described how Internet of Things (IoT) devices present opportunities for the Federal government, but also present the need for regulation during a panel at the Internet of Things Global Summit on Thursday. […]

A new, stealthy Internet of Things (IoT) botnet has emerged with the capability of stealing information from a wide range of devices, underscoring the need for the Federal government to provide guidance on how agencies can reduce risks associated with the deployment of their IoT networks. […]

Christopher Krebs, Department of Homeland Security under secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), said Thursday that NPPD is focusing on the cybersecurity fight of both today and tomorrow, through the various coordinating centers that fall under NPPD’s purview. […]

The Navy is taking software development, particularly with regard to maritime cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and development operations, out to sea. […]

On Wednesday, officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Energy (DoE) met with the Oil and Natural Gas Sector Coordinating Council and announced a collaborative initiative to improve pipeline cybersecurity. […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced the launch of an interactive data tool to display substance abuse data along with other public information, allowing local leaders to “build grassroots strategies to address the opioid epidemic,” the department said in its announcement. […]