In a report released Feb. 25, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that “most” of nine agencies tasked with protecting the 16 critical infrastructure sectors “have not developed methods to determine the level and type of adoption of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” […]

A senior official speaking Feb. 26 at the RSA Conference clarified recent steps by the State Department to publicly attribute and condemn acts of cyber aggression on the part of Russia, calling the actions of the Department part of a deliberate attempt to establish a framework for appropriate nation-state behavior in cyberspace. […]

Federal officials from the Defense Department (DoD), Justice Department (DoJ), and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Feb. 25 totaled up the sobering costs of intellectual property theft from U.S. interests in recent years, and pointed to strategies their agencies are pursuing to put a dent into that total going forward. […]

State and local election officials said at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Feb. 24 that Federal election assistance funding has been vital to their efforts to shore up election infrastructure security over the past few years. […]

The National Governors Association (NGA) urged Congress to take action on key pieces of legislation that will help harden state and local government’s (SLGs) cybersecurity defenses. […]

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2020 (H.R. 5680) could slightly lower the deficit, but not by a significant amount. The bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. on Jan. 27, would authorize the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue administrative subpoenas in rare […]

There is a concerning lack of cyber confidence and organizational maturity across all levels of government, according to a survey released today by SolarWinds. The report, which surveyed IT operations and security decisionmakers from Federal, state, and local governments, found that the biggest IT pain points for the public sector are IT complexity, insider threats, and controlling user network access. […]

Sean Plankey, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity, Energy, Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) at the Department of Energy (DoE), today outlined solutions to cybersecurity skills gaps in the industrial controls sector as security for that sector continues to change from older “manual-mode” methods to more modern technologies. […]

In a letter to ShiftState Security Chief Security Officer Andre McGregor, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., challenged the results of an audit ShiftState was supposed to have conducted of the Voatz voting app. […]

Oki Mek, senior adviser to the CIO at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on Feb. 20 discussed the agency’s current effort to draft a cloud strategy, and the importance of going forward with a unified strategy that guides the entire organization. […]

In a recent report about 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ cybersecurity posture, each of the  campaigns scored a “B” letter grade or better, and showed increased focus and investment in good cyber hygiene. […]

The European Union (EU) released a white paper on artificial intelligence (AI) and its continentwide data strategy Feb. 19 in an effort to position itself as the “global leader of digital transformation.” […]

A Federal judge ruled Feb. 18 that Congress has the authority to ban Federal agencies and contractors from doing business with Chinese communications equipment maker Huawei. […]

Most of us have a standard list of go-to passwords for various logins and websites – each fluctuating slightly with upper or lowercase letters, extra numbers, symbols and punctuation. Some of us keep them scribbled on a notepad, while others click “remember me” when logging onto sites, to speed up the process and relieve the stress of remembering them time and time again. […]

The voting app Voatz has come under increased scrutiny following a Feb. 13 report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers. […]

A MeriTalk survey of 175 milCloud® 2.0 mission partners shows that while 86 percent believe migrating to milCloud® 2.0 will have a positive impact on Department of Defense (DoD) missions, just 21 percent of them are in the process of migrating to the service – pointing to an opportunity for additional training and resources to accelerate migration. […]

A U.S. Department of Commerce Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report found that Commerce exposed sensitive data to unvetted foreign nationals through poor security program controls. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is promising state and local election officials that it will be vigilant, trustworthy, and transparency about 2020 election security in the agency’s #Protect2020 Strategic Plan. […]

While the 2020 election cycle has been officially underway for less than a month, there have already been significant technology concerns. While the most notable tech concern was the Feb. 3 Iowa Caucus, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) raised additional concerns in a report published Feb. 13. […]

As the Department of Defense continues to emphasize cloud adoption, milCloud^® 2.0 offers agencies a way to accelerate cloud migration while continuing to evolve service offerings and capabilities. […]

Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Dan Brouillette announced in a Feb. 13 memo that Karen Evans will leave her post as assistant secretary for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). She will be succeeded by Alexander Gates. […]

The House Homeland Security Committee advanced the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act out of committee on Feb. 12. […]

The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee approved two bills on Feb. 12 to harden the U.S. electric grid against cyberattacks. […]

Department of Homeland Security Acting CIO Beth Cappello said she is directing the move of the Cybersecurity Operations Center from the CISO Directorate to the Information Technology Operations Directorate (ITO). […]

Chezian Sivagnanam, chief enterprise architect at the National Science Foundation (NSF), stressed the importance of moving the Federal government to cloud-native applications, during a presentation Feb. 12 at an event organized by GovLoop and Red Hat. […]

In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would be able to improve and diversify its workforce through improved data collection and analysis capabilities. […]

Google announced today that it is partnering with Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that brings cybersecurity tools and resources to Federal election campaigns. […]

During today’s Senate Homeland Security Committee Hearing, both Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Chris Krebs agreed that CISA’s role is largely similar to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mandate. […]

The United States government must take immediate action to advance its interests in 5G wireless development or else risk falling behind Chinese tech companies like Huawei and ZTE for generations to come, Attorney General William Barr and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said Feb. 6. […]

While the Internet of Things (IoT) promises enormous potential for increasing government efficiency and the user experience, it also creates serious cybersecurity risks. All levels of government and the private sector continue to grapple with how to capitalize on its potential, while making sure the IoT ecosystem is secure and resilient against attacks. […]