In 2015, Defense Department (DoD) contractors that handle sensitive DoD information were given extra time to comply with new department cybersecurity regulations. That grace period now is up, and companies must meet these requirements in 2018. […]
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Emerging Citizen Technology Office (ECTO) is working with a network of partners from more than 300 Federal, state, and local government entities to help evaluate, test, and implement IT modernization initiatives with emerging technologies. […]
The computing world has mobilized en masse in response to the revelation of Meltdown and Spectre, vulnerabilities in computer processors that could open most of the world’s PCs and mobile devices to “side-channel attacks” that could steal data. […]
Federal IT executives must move quickly to apply patches for the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities, but should also be on the lookout for potential performance hits and unforeseen glitches associated with the bug fixes. […]
If you’re looking for reference material on domestic sludge, gold nanoparticles, or peanut butter, a move by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to modernize its e-commerce portal should make it easier to get the information you’re seeking. […]
President Donald Trump last week issued an Executive Order on veterans’ health care that included an announcement that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would adopt the same electronic records systems as the Department of Defense (DoD), signing off on what was already a done deal. Emphasis on “deal,” because although the departments are on board with a project that could cost $10 billion over 10 years, history raises doubts as to whether a unified health records system can actually be achieved. […]
The Pentagon, well aware that private sector innovation has outstripped its own in key technologies, is expanding its courtship of industry with a new pilot program that encourages academic industry collaboration on what its calls “use-inspired basic research.” The program will concentrate on development projects aimed at creating applications that can be implemented in the field. […]
Last year brought a great deal of change to Washington, D.C., from a new administration moving into the White House to D.C. United building a new stadium. As 2018 starts up with seemingly limitless IT opportunities ahead, MeriTalk takes a look back on the top Federal IT stories from 2017. […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) push toward greater adoption of commercial cloud computing could raise some questions for the military services and component agencies, including what type of cloud environment would work best while meeting unique DoD needs such as security and high-volume transactions. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) took a stab at answering those questions last week while offering a plan for enterprise cloud adoption. […]
Weapons systems these days are run by computers, and as with other computer system, software upgrades are a constant fact of life. The trick is to install and test those upgrades effectively with a minimum of downtime. Case in point: the Navy’s venerable, but always improving, Aegis Combat System (ACS). The Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $102.5 million contract modification to continue its long-running work on the development and integration of ACS capabilities, while exploring a way to test those upgrades without incurring downtime or extra costs. […]
After years on the backburner, electronic warfare (EW) is moving up the ranks as an integral part of the Pentagon’s military focus. The Army last month received approval to move ground-based EW efforts into the Terrestrial Layer Intelligence System, joining cyber, signals, and other intelligence as part of the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare (MFEW) structure. The service wants to include airborne EW later this year. […]
Renitalynette Anderson, the former deputy director of business administration at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, accepted a new position as president at Quality Technology (QuTech), an IT solutions provider specializing in in cybersecurity, data center management, cloud computing, call center management, program management, and IT consulting with Federal, state, and local governments. […]
Communication is key–especially for the Federal government. One of the most important ways the government communicates with citizens is through agency websites. In fact, the Federal government has roughly 4,500 websites on more than 400 domains. However, the vast majority of those websites aren’t meeting industry standards. […]
When Joby Emmons arrived for his first day as general counsel at IdeaScale, he was told: “Your first job at IdeaScale is to get us FedRAMP authorized.” […]
The MGT Act became the law of the land on Dec. 21, when President Trump signed it into law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the much-vaunted revolving capital fund–cut out of the original FITARA bill in committee–that establishes a central bucket of money at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), for Feds to modernize legacy IT systems. […]
North Korea’s persistent efforts on nuclear weapons development and some loose talk about red buttons have raised new fears internationally about the possibilities of nuclear conflict. At home, government agencies also are addressing the questions about what to do in the case of a nuclear detonation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, will hold one of its Public Health Grand Round teaching sessions Jan. 16 on how medical professionals should respond–and although the event has been planned for months, it’s timing suddenly seems to be on the mark. […]
The Intelligence Community wants to develop a kind of universal translator that will search documents across a full range of media and make sense of them for English-speaking analysts. […]
It was no surprise to industry experts that agency performance on the initial scorecard for MEGABYTE Act compliance was poor. Twenty-one of 24 agencies graded received Fs. Managing software licenses can be complex and agencies had little time to begin the task before they were evaluated, they said. […]
Usually agencies want to speak highly of their IT operating systems, so to hear Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Steve Censky call the USDA operating model “splintered and out of date” on Dec. 14 was a bit of a shock. […]
As the new year begins, Alfred Rivera, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Development and Business Center, will retire from the Federal government. Rivera, who stepped down today, has been in the Federal service for 35 years, and spent all but 10 of those years at DISA. Rivera will begin consulting following his retirement from the public sector. […]
Turning that job over to robotic systems is the idea behind the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) latest competition, the Subterranean Challenge. DARPA is inviting teams from around the world to develop new ways of mapping, navigating, and searching underground environments, and is offering $2.75 million in prize money to the eventual winners. […]
In a data scientist’s dreams, the Internet of Things (IoT) would cover the Earth. And in fact, that dream might not be that far off–ground-based sensors, unmanned vehicles, mobile devices of all kinds, and satellites already combine to offer a pretty clear picture of what’s going on around us, and the resolution is only going to improve. […]
With the Internet for transportation, a lie can get all the way around the world before truth can blink itself awake. And that’s a challenge for those who seek to stem the proliferation of false information, be it accidentally misattributed quotes, political propaganda, or malicious “fake news.” Artificial intelligence can help combat the problem, by using machine learning algorithms to detect the patterns used in phony stories and ads designed to stir up fear or outrage, or, in the case of Russian disinformation, unsettle people’s faith in American institutions. […]
Despite an air of uncertainty coming from the Trump administration, the Department of Energy’s research arm is forging ahead with what it calls “transformational research,” putting up $100 million to try to ensure that it doesn’t miss a trick when it comes to potentially disruptive energy research. […]
What does everybody in Federal IT want for Christmas? Yes, you guessed it, a new Federal CIO. Santa’s elves have been chattering, and we understand that Suzette Kent will soon be named to the top job in Federal IT. With the passage of the MGT Act and FITARA grades slip sliding, folks have been calling for a new executive to get to grips with the change agenda. […]
An alliance of government agencies is taking a deep dive, as it were, into the world’s oceans as part of a larger project to develop a comprehensive environmental Earth model that could more accurately make predictions about weather and climate. The new model could enable forecasting events ahead of time, by days or even decades. […]
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), faced with a growing and diverse threat of chemical and biological attacks, is ramping up efforts to use technology to detect and, when possible, prevent attacks. […]
Password manager company, Dashlane, has added a twist with its list of the “Worst Password Offenders” of 2017, naming high-profile people and organizations that fell into the bad-password trap. President Trump was deemed the worst offender, primarily because of simple passwords reportedly used by cabinet members and policy directors. Outside parties were also the culprits for the Department of Defense, specifically for its contractor, Booz Allen, as well as the Republican Party (stemming from a careless data analytics firm). Paul Manafort, for using “Bond007” as a password, and Sean Spicer, for apparently tweeting his passwords, also came in for scorn. […]
Email is a core network application for both the private sector the and government, and has become an essential business communication tool. Since email is nearly ubiquitous and often poorly secured, it also has become a vector for fraud and data theft. Phishing emails can compromise not only Federal networks and databases, but also trust in government communications. […]
Last July, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) revamped the provisional authorization process to make life easier for cloud service providers (CSPs). The change let CSPs use a simple web form to delineate their business cases to FedRAMP’s Joint Authorization Board (JAB). […]