The Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government today approved the FY2020 Financial Services and General Government Funding bill that zeros out funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) for FY2020, a source with knowledge confirmed. […]

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School announced today the appointment of directors for its cyber-related projects: Lauren Zabierek will run the Center’s Cyber Project; Maria Barsallo Lynch will head its Defending Digital Democracy Project; and Julia Voo will run its China Cyber Policy Initiative. […]

The Department of Treasury released a cloud acquisition roadmap based on the department’s cloud strategy that took effect July 1, 2019, according to special notice. […]

Federal government spending on artificial intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) is poised to double in Fiscal Year 2020 from its total in calendar year 2016, U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios said today at an event organized by Politico. […]

With Department of Homeland Security (DHS) looking to close its Data Center 2 (DC2) by June 2020, DHS Infrastructure Services Division Executive Director Carlene Ileto provided progress updates indicating that most DHS components are in the process of or planning to move their data to the cloud by the DC2 closure deadline. […]

Accenture has announced the appointment of Aaron Faulkner as head of the Federal Cyber practice at Accenture Federal Services. He is the vice president of cybersecurity at ECS. […]

The National Academy of Public Administration on Sept. 16 announced the selection of 51 leaders in the field of public administration for the group’s 2019 Class of Academy Fellows. […]

Although extensive national dialogue over data privacy legislation have yet to yield a tangible Federal policy, data privacy experts who have worked with lawmakers provided insight at the Brookings Institution on Sept. 16 about the evolving nature of data privacy concerns in the country, as well as further challenges and policy areas a Federal law will have to address. […]

A sampling of many of the most important private-sector players supplying technology and services through the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program reveals optimism about the pace of Federal agency implementation of the program. […]

Formalizing the roles of Federal agency chief data officers (CDO) – a relatively new position for many Federal agencies – is well underway but still far from finished, two agency CDOs indicated on Sept. 16 at the Professional Services Council’s Tech Trends Conference. […]

With the new-found ability to focus on just one major Federal executive post instead of two, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director Margaret Weichert said today she is turning her full-time focus to advancing several aspects of the President’s Management Agenda published by the Trump administration last year. […]

U.S. Cyber Command is learning from a host of challenges including maneuvering through congested information environments to combat adversaries, said Gen. Richard Angle, Cyber Command’s Deputy Commanding General (Operations), at AUSA’s ILW Hot Topics event today. […]

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a Sept. 13 report that implementing the Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2019 will cost $35 million over the 2019-2024 period, and an additional $11 million in 2020 to develop the IoT guidelines and standards mandated in the legislation. […]

On Sept. 13, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and government and industry members on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Task Force voted to approve the recommendations of three of the four constituent Working Groups. […]

The U.S. Navy is set to announce appointments to several senior IT leadership positions next week, said Thomas Modly, who began performing the duties of the Navy Secretary in July, at the Professional Services Council’s (PSC) Tech Trends Conference today. […]

Employees who stop working before their termination date or take vacation days prior to their separation date can bring risk to an agency if their access to agency systems isn’t removed in a timely manner, according to a report from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) inspector general, released September 11. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched a training program to support its electronic health record (EHR) modernization effort, and its trainees are starting to work on EHR modernization implementation already, according to a VA press release today. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted the potential benefits and challenges of implementing distributed ledger technologies (DLT) – like blockchain – in government, in a report released today. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) released a version of its customer experience survey for high-impact Federal programs to use, as mandated by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-11, on the Federal Register today. […]

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions today that will target “three North Korean state-sponsored malicious cyber groups responsible for North Korea’s malicious cyber activity on critical infrastructure.” […]

The FBI announced this week that it has arrested hundreds of cyber criminals both in the United States and internationally in a large-scale, coordinated operation to tackle international business email compromise (BEC) schemes. […]

The General Services Administration is taking its FedRAMP Program to cloud service providers, start-ups, and entrepreneurs in San Francisco on Sept. 25 to showcase opportunities to work with the program that speeds the authorization process to provide products and services in the Federal government’s $90 billion per year IT market. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did not set an adequate level of access controls for its Beneficiary Fiduciary Field System (BFFS), which put personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) at risk, according to a report released September 12 by VA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) announced Sept. 12 that it selected Carahsoft Technology and Grant Thornton for the first task orders under its NewPay blanket purchase agreement that aims to modernize Federal payroll services. […]

The United States must maintain its advantage in artificial intelligence and quantum computing over countries like China by placing the building blocks for a future workforce, according to Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas. […]

Federal CIO Suzette Kent celebrated the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) release of its new TIC (Trusted Internet Connections) 3.0 policy today as a major milestone in the Trump administration’s efforts to complete meaningful updates of Federal IT policies that are more than five years old. […]

The intelligence community (IC) is establishing a hub in Washington and is encouraging industry and Federal partner collaboration in developing its data-analyzing artificial intelligence (AI) strategy known as the Augmenting Intelligence Using Machines (AIM) Initiative, IC Chief Data Officer Nancy Morgan said today. […]

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has finalized its update to the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative in a memo released today. The final version of the policy opens the door for new approaches to network security, and retains most elements of the draft framework released in December 2018. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is seeking a vendor to bring interoperability to a wide range of cybersecurity capabilities and create a single network for cyber defense, according to a sources sought notice released September 6. Responses are due by September 20. […]

The Defense Department (DoD) needs to operate at a fast pace to maintain global advantage, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are paving the way forward to more rapid response to national security threats and dangers, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Deputy Director Mike Madsen said today. […]