Chief information officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and NASA are scheduled to testify at the House Government Operations Subcommittee’s hearing on Dec. 11 to discuss results of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s ninth FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard, MeriTalk has learned. […]

On Dec. 6, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., introduced H.R. 5353, which will establish a policy that promotes and maintains “digital and software development expertise” in the Defense Department’s (DoD) workforce. […]

The President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) recommended “urgent and comprehensive action” on cyber threats to critical infrastructure in a draft of its Dec. 12 memo to the White House. […]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has announced the appointment of chairs for four working groups that will support the work of the FCC’ new Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture.  […]

Cable and internet trade group NCTA has named Mary Beth Murphy Vice President and Deputy General Counsel-Legal and Regulatory Affairs. […]

The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio announced lengthy U.S. prison sentences for two Romanian nationals for their roles in infecting more than 400,000 computers with malware in order to steal and resell data resulting in financial losses of about $4 million. […]

While figures vary across industry and government as to the size of the “phishing-prone” population in any organization, both sides agree that sustained internal employee training efforts are necessary to cut the success rate of spear-phishing exploits down to more manageable levels. […]

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released a sole source procurement notice for 451 Research’s one-year subscription to the agency’s Cloud Price Index Service on Dec. 4. […]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a new mobile application called the CURE ID that will allow the clinical community to report uses of existing drugs for infectious diseases that may prove difficult to treat. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operation has pulled its support for a mandatory biometric entry-exit system that would require facial recognition scans for all travelers – including U.S. citizens – entering or departing the United States, according to a Dec. 5 press release from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. […]

At a Brookings Institution event on Dec. 5, Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Mike Lee, R-Utah., made the case for their Facial Recognition Technology Warrant Act. […]

Officials from the General Services Administration (GSA), and Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Veterans Affairs (VA) talked this week about some of the obstacles they’ve encountered, and are overcoming, in wrestling with Big Data sets. […]

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is poised to take action next week on a range of tech-related legislation including bills dealing with making available spectrum for 5G wireless services, and further action to rein in robocalling. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today the launch of its National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute (NAII) to coordinate veteran-specific AI initiatives. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Government Operations Subcommittee has scheduled a  hearing for Dec. 11 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss results of the subcommittee’s upcoming release of the ninth edition of its FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard. […]

Federal artificial intelligence (AI) technology leaders agreed today that a human-centered approach to data management and automation generates stakeholder buy-in and improves agencywide perceptions of AI projects. […]

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has rolled out its modernized Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) to 31 states and territories, but the system is only being used to process seven percent of their workloads due to gaps in functionality, according to a review by SSA’s inspector general. […]

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and five major healthcare companies to “provide more information on how they are addressing bias in algorithms used in many healthcare systems.” […]

New research shows that email is still a weak link in U.S. election infrastructure, with only five percent of the nation’s largest counties protecting election officials from impersonation attempts. […]

Ross Foard, Senior Engineer in the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program Office at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on Dec. 4 that many Federal agencies are completing work on the second of four phases of the CDM program. […]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed Dec. 4 to create a $9 billion fund to support the deployment of 5G wireless services in rural portions of the U.S. The proposal would require approval from a majority of the full five-member commission, with a vote likely sometime in 2020. […]

Days after Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced data privacy legislation to the Senate, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing to examine legislative proposals to protect consumer data privacy. […]

Access to valuable data and the transition to cloud infrastructure could help the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) access life-saving procedures for patients across the country, according to a presentation by HHS CIO José Arrieta at FCW Workshop: Health IT on Dec. 4. […]

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is looking to leverage the cloud for its intelligence unit as the demands of cyber combat and maritime activities are pushing the unit to embrace technology, according to a request for information released November 22. Responses are due by December 20. […]

We sat down with ViON’s EVP of Operations Rob Davies, and Dan Fallon, Senior Director of Public Sector Systems Engineering at Nutanix, to discuss how to best manage high-performance applications that are part of a multi-cloud strategy, and the key considerations every agency leader should be evaluating in that equation. […]

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord (CTA), an international, industry-led effort by technology and security companies to combat cyberattacks, today announced a new contest to improve internet cybersecurity. […]

The Census Bureau’s personnel and hiring systems are not ready to scale to meet the peak demand needed for the 2020 Decennial Census, according to a management alert from the Department of Commerce’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]

U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Thomas Hicks said on Dec. 3 that election security in the U.S. is “light years” ahead of where it was in 2016, but also emphasized there’s plenty more to do to ensure good security for the 2020 election cycle. […]

Machine-learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technologies are crucial ingredients necessary to creating the next generation of healthcare data security and functionality, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official said today at an event presented by Fortinet. […]

While many – if not most – Federal agencies are taking at least preliminary steps towards embracing advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), they are moving with a degree of justifiable caution when it comes to relying on those technologies as part of their cybersecurity defenses, government tech officials said today at an event presented by Fortinet. […]