The Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) released on Oct. 15 a toolkit aimed at helping small to mid-sized healthcare institutions shore up the security of the products and services they procure through an enterprise supply chain cybersecurity risk management program. […]

Technology and transportation industry groups penned a letter to Congressional leadership today urging Congress to ensure innovation can flourish in the facial recognition space, while still creating needed regulation. […]

Digital transformation is happening everywhere – and with increasing urgency in the Federal government.  Advances in cloud technology have allowed the acceleration of these initiatives; yet with those innovations come critical cybersecurity challenges, especially as it relates to identity management and data privacy. […]

In an Oct. 10 letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney, Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., called for “stronger coordination of supply chain risk management for information and communications equipment across the Federal government.” […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) is partnering with Defense Digital Service (DDS) and HackerOne to launch the second Hack the Army bug bounty challenge. The challenge, which will run from Oct. 9 to Nov. 8, encourages hackers to attack more than 60 publicly accessible web assets to improve the DoD’s cyber defenses. […]

Army Gen. Paul Nakasone – who heads both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command – said today that the first focus of NSA’s recently launched Cybersecurity Directorate will be to shore up protection of companies that make up the nation’s Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and specifically to prevent the theft of intellectual property from DIB companies. […]

The Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) said in an Oct 8 release that 70 percent of the presidential campaign websites it reviewed did not meet the group’s standards for privacy and security standards, “potentially exposing visitors to unnecessary risks.” […]

NetChoice, a business trade group focused on promoting free speech and free enterprise on the internet, launched a public campaign on Oct. 7 to defend law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology, and is taking aim at anti-facial recognition effort in Massachusetts. […]

When cybersecurity works at its best, you barely know anything about it. Because highly secure and efficient networks rarely create their own reasons to make the news. […]

Perhaps the most ambitious and transformational information security project ever attempted by the Federal government – the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program – is set to go under the microscope on October 10 at MeriTalk’s CDM Central conference dedicated to navigating the Federal cybersecurity roadmap. […]

The FBI issued a warning regarding “high-impact” ransomware attacks on Oct. 2, stressing the risk they pose to U.S. businesses and organizations. […]

Tenable’s Federal Business Development Manager Chris Jensen Shares his Thoughts on CDM Progress, Priorities, and Challenges […]

The vast majority of U.S. primary election voters want presidential candidates to make reducing cybercrime a top priority, according to a Sept. 30 poll from think tank Third Way. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Sept. 27 that a former Federal contractor was sentenced to two years in prison for “illegally accessing his former employer’s network systems, stealing critical servers and information, and causing a loss of over $1.1 million.” […]

The CyberPeace Institute, an independent non-governmental organization (NGO), launched Sept. 26 with the mission to “assist vulnerable communities, promote transparency, and advance global discussions on acceptable behavior in cyberspace.” […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified in a new report several cybersecurity risks to the U.S. electric grid and called upon the Department of Energy (DoE) to develop an improved Federal strategy to protect against cyber threats to the grid. […]

The House Homeland Security Committee approved legislation on Sept. 25 a cyber committee within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]

The Senate on Sept. 24 passed a bill that would increase the Federal government’s ability to respond to and aid government agencies and private-sector companies that are involved in major cyber incidents. […]

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., on Sept. 24 introduced H.R. 4458, the Cybersecurity and Financial System Resilience Act of 2019, to combat cybersecurity threats facing the Federal Reserve System. […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) have released a draft cybersecurity guide for energy sector asset management.  NCCoE is seeking comments on the draft through Nov. 25. […]

Amidst the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the United States and 26 other countries released a joint statement on advancing responsible state behavior in cyberspace on Sept. 23. […]

Microsoft announced Sept. 20 that it is extending free security support for Federally certified voting systems running Windows 7 through the 2020 election. Microsoft had previously announced it was ceasing to support Windows 7. […]

In the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), the Justice Department was tasked with combating cyber-enabled threats and attacks by “conducting 8,400 computer intrusion program deterrences, detections, disruptions, and dismantlements, while successfully resolving 90 percent of its cyber defendant cases.” According to a Q3 FY2019 update, the Justice Department has not only met its quarterly targets, but it has also exceeded them. […]

While the Department of Education is somewhat on track to meet its goal of improving student privacy and data security at institutions of higher education, it still has room to improve, according to an update to the Department of Education’s agency priority goals – part of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) – released September 19. […]

“Never trust; always verify,” is emerging as the new slogan for information security in a cloud-based world. At its core is Zero Trust – the idea that access to agency resources should be restricted until the user has proven their identity and access permissions, and the device has passed a security profile check. […]

In a panel at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Summit today, House Committee on Homeland Security (CHS) Aide Moira Bergin stressed Chairman Bennie Thompson’s, D-Miss., desire to reestablish the White House cybersecurity advisor position. […]

More than a year after the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator position was eliminated, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., is urging the Trump administration to reestablish the role, according to a statement released Sept. 18. The recent push comes as President Trump named Robert O’Brien as his new National Security Advisor, following the resignation of John Bolton. […]

Federal cybersecurity officials spoke about the strategies they’re pursuing to address workforce issues within their agencies during a Sept. 18 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Summit panel. […]

“Never trust; always verify” – it’s the new slogan for information security in a perimeter-less landscape. While 93% of Federal agencies have implemented security solutions mapping to this modern mindset, the majority haven’t outlined a clear Zero Trust initiative fit for cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud demands. […]

The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today that the spate of ransomware attacks that hit school systems in Texas and Louisiana over the past month “got pretty close” to qualifying as a “large-scale cyber event,” which he said begs the need to further develop Federal doctrine about how to respond to major events. […]