The White House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2020, released on Monday, does not appear to include a pay raise for Federal civilian employees but does propose a 3.1 percent annual pay increase for members of the military. […]
Jackson County, Ga., paid cybercriminals $400,000 to remove ransomware that infected its IT systems. The ransomware, known as Ryuk Ransomware, hit the county on March 1 and impacted multiple county agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office. […]
Law firm Perkins Coie LLP has appointed Justin Cole senior media relations manager. He was assistant vice president-public affairs at wireless industry trade group CTIA. […]
Federal and private-sector officials discussed the benefits of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into Federal agency operations during a panel discussion at this weekend’s Dell Experience at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference in Austin, Texas, as well as ethical and technical challenges that come with developing AI applications. […]
President Trump’s FY2020 budget released today includes $150 million for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) and proposes necessary authorities for agencies to establish IT working capital funds under the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act. […]
Controlling cloud costs in today’s hybrid and multi-cloud environments can be a challenge for many Federal technology managers after a migration or cloud-native application deployment. There are so many variables to consider, from operational to contracts and licensing issues, that if the process is not well managed costs can spiral out of control. […]
Government-wide security clearance processes, and the half million-plus backlog in the clearance applications pipeline, made the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) High-Risk report last week as a contributing factor to the larger problem of ensuring IT security, generally. […]
The 2020 U.S. Census is on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) list of high-risk programs, particularly out of concern for the U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to implement modified information technology (IT) systems to efficiently collect and secure data in a timely and cost-effective manner. […]
With multiple hearings on the Hill, an FY 2020 budget proposal coming from the White House, and numerous non-government organizations hosting technology events, the week ahead looks to be a busy one for Federal IT. […]
Even though the broad category of U.S. cybersecurity has spent more than ten years on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) High-Risk List, it appears there’s still plenty of work to be done in improving cyber defense, according to GAO’s update to the list issued earlier this week. […]
The Government Accountability Office encouraged the Departments of Transportation (DoT) and Labor (DoL) to continue working closely with trucking stakeholders in a study released yesterday that analyzed the potential workforce effects of automated trucking. […]
The House Foreign Affairs Committee marked up the Cyber Diplomacy Act yesterday, signaling the overall approval of the legislation by the committee. […]
In response to the Trump administration’s American AI Initiative, Intel released its recommendations for a national strategy for artificial intelligence that hashes out the goals and actions needed to advance the AI industry. […]
The House passed the For the People Act, or H.R. 1, on Friday with a party-line vote of 234-193. […]
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee hearing yesterday that she plans to reintroduce the Code Like a Girl Act, which the senator sponsored in 2017 as a member of the House. […]
Software-maker trade group BSA sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Thursday urging modernization of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) supply chain security and software acquisition approach in the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. […]
The General Services Administration announced Thursday that they are adding a category for cloud-oriented IT professional services to IT Schedule 70 under the Cloud Special Item Number (SIN), as well as draft updates for existing software SINs. […]
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said this week they are concerned that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may be violating the Federal Records Act (FRA). […]
The Defense Information Service Agency (DISA) is transferring control of the National Background Investigation Service (NBIS) to the Director of Defense Security Service (DSS). […]
Senators and witnesses alike took turns criticizing Chinese tech and trade policy, and China-based network equipment maker Huawei, at a hearing on Thursday over the firm’s alleged potential to create security harms if its equipment was included in U.S. 5G wireless networks. […]
While a Federal government-wide database on fees would require a lot of resources to implement, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should aim to make more fee data available to the public, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday. […]
In written testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, Alicia Puente, director of Financial Market and Community Investment at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), suggested that increased authorities for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could enhance privacy enforcement and consumer protection online. […]
Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore, Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., wrote Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence, on Monday urging him to declassify information regarding China’s attempts to influence U.S. elections. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director Christopher Krebs said that a strategic risk assessment of 5G technology would be completed within “a couple months” at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. […]
The military services reached a new technological milestone when the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) introduced its first-ever supercomputing site for classified research at the AFRL Department of Defense (DoD) Supercomputing Resource Center. […]
U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who heads the Government Accountability Office, said in congressional testimony on Wednesday he is “hopeful” that Robert Wilkie, who became the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in July 2018, will have more luck cracking the agency’s pressing problems, including IT, than his predecessors. […]
As technology and public policy continue to meet at a crossroads in American society, Bruce Schneier, fellow and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, proposed that the United States needs more public-interest technologists at the RSA Conference yesterday. […]
Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency (NSA), discussed how the recent shift in Federal cybersecurity strategies enabled a stronger response to foreign adversaries. […]
In a survey released today, Tripwire found that security professionals believe their teams are understaffed and that skilled cybersecurity workers are harder to find. […]
Several senators said today that high-profile private-sector data breaches like those disclosed by Equifax in 2017 and Marriott in 2018 serve to boost the urgency with which Congress should act to approve legislation that would implement the country’s first national private-sector cybersecurity regulations and procedures. […]