Defense Secretary James Mattis in May urged President Trump to create a “whole of country” national strategy to advance U.S. development of artificial intelligence technologies, shortly after the White House’s announcement on May 10 of a new AI advisory committee–the Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence–to advise the White House on research and development efforts across government and industry. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Facebook, and Microsoft hosted a joint briefing on Friday, Aug. 24, for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) regarding “actions being taken to combat malicious interference operations.” […]
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an Aug. 21 letter to update the Justice Department’s (DoJ) guidance on use of cell-site simulator technologies–sometimes referred to as Stingray devices–to take into account information from a manufacturer that use of the devices may completely disrupt communications of targeted phones including emergency 911 calls and other features. […]
U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Federal district court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling Saturday that struck down key provisions of President Trump’s three executive orders related to the Federal workforce, which were issued in May and which agencies largely began implementing early last month. […]
As the Pentagon rushes headlong into putting artificial intelligence into more of its operations, analyses, and weapons, it has said it doesn’t want to ignore caution flags about putting too much faith in the power of machines. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wants to help with that, posting an array of those flags in a white paper that offers guidance to military use of AI and includes of list of its shortcomings and where it can go wrong. […]
The Department of Defense said it released an amended request for proposals for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract. […]
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) previewed the results of its biannual state CISO survey during a webinar on Tuesday, revealing the continued growth of cybersecurity staff among the states, and continuing resource challenges. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is seeking comments on a draft practice guide that explores how multifactor authentication can help reduce fraudulent online purchases. […]
The General Services Administration’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract aims to aid modernization, support secure connections through various methods, and allow agencies to focus better on their mission, according to participants on a webinar titled “Building and Securing Government’s Connected Future with EIS,” hosted by FedInsider and sponsored by CenturyLink. […]
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., this week introduced legislation that would take several steps to curb the ability of Chinese companies to impact the U.S. technology supply chain and profit from alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property. […]
The U.S. Navy on Thursday awarded five firms a potential seven-year, $950 billion contract for “Cyber Mission Systems, kitting, and supplies.” […]
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has named David Chow CIO, beginning earlier this week, a HUD official confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The military services are mirroring the approach of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which seeks to accelerate the development of new technologies. This would be accomplished through collaboration with companies large and small, old and new. It has been so successful that earlier this month it got to remove the “x” from its name, as it’s no longer a temporary experiment. […]
On the heels of Kelly Olson’s promotion to head the General Services Administration’s Technology and Transformation Services (TTS) organization (LINK to yesterday’s story), the agency is setting into motion a series of leadership changes impacting its FedRAMP operation, among others. […]
The former chief security officer at Facebook urged in a column published today on the “Lawfare” blog that the U.S. consider creating an independent, “defense-only” cybersecurity agency to deal with defense of election systems and processes that may come under attack by adversaries. […]
Services provider KBR was awarded a $71 million task order from the Defense Health Agency (DHA). […]
Jonathan Dowling, co-director of the Hearne Institute for Theoretical Physics at Louisiana State University, said today at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Army Science and Technology Symposium that conservative estimates put the world’s first universal quantum computer at about a decade away from becoming a reality. […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) move to the cloud is fueled by the agency’s desire to improve interoperability and adopt emerging technologies, according to officials speaking during yesterday’s MeriTalk webinar. On the webinar, which was underwritten by AWS and Red Hat, Stephen Moon, senior solutions architect, DoD at Amazon Web Services, and Ted Brunell, chief architect, DoD at Red Hat discussed why cloud is mission-critical and how DoD sees it shaping the future. […]
The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about a new scam that targets men by claiming to know a personal secret about them and demanding a ransom in bitcoin. […]
Brian Sadler, senior scientist for intelligent systems at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, today discussed how the expanse of artificial intelligence (AI) research activities across the Army is bringing to light even greater challenges. […]
The Federal government’s “Cloud First” strategy didn’t get quite the results the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was looking for the first time, so now OMB is about to unveil “Cloud Smart,” which updates the seven-year-old strategy with an eye toward energizing agencies that have lagged in making the transition. […]
Wireless communications industry trade group CTIA said this week it launched its cybersecurity certification program for cellular-connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices. […]
With just 75 days to go until the 2018 midterm elections and amid mounting pressure for legislative action to boost election security, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration postponed today’s scheduled business meeting on the Secure Elections Act, which would help state and local governments apply for Federal grants to modernize their election systems and receive relevant cyber threat information. […]
La’Naia Jones, Deputy CIO of the Intelligence Community, said today that the commoditization of hacking capabilities, expansion of IT supply chain exploits, and nation-state use of ransomware have come to the attention of the IC as primary areas of interest in the fight for better cybersecurity. […]
The Election Assistance Commission on Tuesday released most state budget data for Help America Vote Act (HAVA) grants, which revealed that a majority of the $380 million in grant money is being devoted to cybersecurity and new voting equipment. […]
Kelly Olson, chief of staff for the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology and Transformation Services (TTS) organization, will take over as acting director of TTS and Deputy Commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) beginning Monday, August 27. […]
The Department of Homeland Security is working with multiple Federal agencies to develop a new “risk radar” that will help agencies’ top executives contextualize cybersecurity risk and clarify where they need to apply focus and resources, according to Mark Kneidinger, director of the Federal Network Resilience division of DHS’ Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C). […]
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a request for information (RFI) for moving its FAA Enterprise Network Services program (FENS) to Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) High standards. […]
Members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee quizzed the Trump administration’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) about agency reorganization, cybersecurity, and acquisition issues during a generally supportive nomination hearing today. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded $4 million to support small business innovation through NIST’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. […]