The Senate voted to confirm Benjamin Hovland and Donald Palmer as commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), allowing the commission to hold a quorum for the first time since March. […]
The House of Representatives’ rules package, which will be introduced later today, includes a new “Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.” The package, which is backed by newly minted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., includes three titles and is expected to pass. The title that includes the new Select Committee will be up for a vote on Friday. […]
The Senate confirmed James Gfrerer as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs Wednesday evening on a voice vote, filling the permanent CIO role that had been vacant since the start of the Trump administration. […]
Patrick Halley has joined USTelecom as its new senior vice president of Advocacy and Regulatory Affairs. […]
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced Friday that FCC will investigate last week’s nationwide CenturyLink outage, which impacted 911 service across the country. The outage, which primarily impacted Western states, began shortly after 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 27 and was resolved by 9 p.m. ET on Dec. 28. […]
The State Department is looking to secure its mobile devices and protect against malicious apps–with an app. The department released a request for information on Dec. 20, asking vendors for information about an endpoint protection platform for mobile devices. Responses are due by Jan. 18. […]
The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier as the new director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). […]
A day after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filled its board of commissioners for the first time since April 2018 by confirming Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks to full five-year terms, the FCC shuttered most of their operations on Thursday amid the partial government shutdown. […]
The Pentagon’s plan to use machine intelligence to better manage the finite and increasingly crowded electromagnetic spectrum took a small leap forward last month, as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) hosted Phase 2 of its Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2). […]
he partial Federal government shutdown is expected to last at least until Friday, as congressional leaders left a meeting with President Donald Trump today apparently with no deal in place. […]
The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Dec. 21 that it filed suit in Federal district court for the Western District of New York seeking disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) into how seven Federal agencies conduct what ACLU characterized as “hacking” operations into phones, computers, and other devices. […]
President Trump on Dec. 31 signed into law H.R. 5509, the “Innovations in Mentoring, Training, and Apprenticeships Act,” that would direct the National Science Foundation to provide grants for research about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education approaches and STEM-related workforce issues. […]
The Department of Labor on Dec. 27 released a request for information on a proposal for a new financial management system, with an eye towards a potential move to the cloud and data analytics capabilities. Responses are due by 11 AM on January 16. […]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said last month it established a new program called Pilot IRS that will look to investigate and acquire emerging technologies that will help the agency better serve taxpayers. […]
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that NSF could improve its mobile device security after finding devices that were not enrolled in the agency’s management program, and finding inappropriate apps on work devices. The agency agreed with those recommendations. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) newly-minted cybersecurity component agency, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have furloughed substantial chunks of their workforce as a result of the continuing partial Federal government shutdown, according to planning documents issued last month. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week released its Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices, a set of voluntary cybersecurity guidelines for the private sector that leverages the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to address cybersecurity issues across healthcare organizations of all sizes. […]
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) announced that Navy Vice Admiral Robert Sharp will be the next director of NGA, starting in February. […]
The Department of Homeland Security announced last month that it will offer $800,000 in grants to startups and small businesses for blockchain counterfeiting solutions through its Science and Technology Directorate’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program. […]
When the Big One hits, the United States won’t be ready for it. […]
When it comes to protecting mobile devices and applications, Federal agencies need security capabilities that travel with devices and proactively protect them against all types of cyberattacks, experts say. […]
With 2018 drawing to a close, password manager Dashlane announced its annual list of “Worst Password Offenders.” A diverse group of individuals, government organizations, companies, and academic institutions topped Dashlane’s list. […]
A partial government shutdown was still in effect as of Monday, December 24, 2018, after Congress and the Trump administration could not come to an agreement on a government funding bill over the weekend. […]
After approval of some new amendments to exempt financial data and smaller agencies, H.R. 4174–the OPEN Government Data Act–passed both the House and the Senate on Friday and headed to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. […]
President Trump on Friday signed into law H.R. 6227, the “National Quantum Initiative Act,” which establishes a National Quantum Initiative Program to accelerate Federal government efforts to develop quantum information science and technology applications. […]
The White House announced on Dec. 21 that President Trump signed into law H.R. 7327, which aims to reduce Federal government supply chain threats, and also would establish a bug bounty program and vulnerability disclosure policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). […]
President Trump announced Sunday via social media that he has appointed Patrick Shanahan the acting Secretary of Defense effective Jan. 1, 2019, succeeding Gen. James Mattis who resigned as Secretary of Defense last week. […]
he Federal government was poised for a partial shutdown beginning at midnight tonight despite House and Senate action aimed at avoiding that. […]
A partial government shutdown can’t stop the Christmas spirit. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) assured people on Twitter that a partial government shutdown would not stop the 63 year tradition of tracking Santa Claus’ location. […]
The Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC) wants an analysis defining the scope and exploration of the relationship between cyber and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). […]