The National Institute of Standards and Technology today announced the release of the final public draft of its Risk Management Framework (RMF), opening the newly-revised document to one more round of public comment before the RMF is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. […]

Brig. Gen. Lorna Mahlock, chief information officer of the United States Marine Corps, said today that the Marines aren’t struggling to find capable IT talent, but utilizing that talent properly may pose a bigger challenge. […]

Defense Department CIO Dana Deasy said today that DoD is currently sorting through the FY 2019 budget allocation for the new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), and likely will be creating outposts for JAIC to spur outreach to members of academia. […]

As Federal agencies’ cloud migrations lead to the deployment of multi-cloud environments, agency technology managers must understand the dependencies between infrastructure, operating models, and applications. […]

Whole-of-government collaboration on quantum computing appears to have kicked up yet another notch today with an announcement that the National Institute of Standards and Technology has reached a deal to establish a Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QEDC). […]

The Department of Energy’s new office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) has already begun work to provide support to the nation’s energy grid and critical infrastructure cybersecurity, and the head of the new office appeared in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday to discuss the role of CESER within DoE. […]

Rep Will Hurd, R-Texas, chairman of the House IT subcommittee, questioned today whether Google’s decision in June to not renew a contract with the Defense Department for development of artificial intelligence technologies was influenced by what the congressman characterized as possible “influence operations” by the Chinese government. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) today announced that it awarded a 10-year, $2.5 billion blanket purchase agreement (BPA) for software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that will modernize the Federal government’s civilian payroll, work schedule, and leave management systems. […]

With new guidelines on the horizon for the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, the Department of Homeland Security is looking to design recommendations that allow for the employment of future technologies while maintaining acceptable levels of risk, said TIC Program Manager Mark Bunn during the FCW Accelerate GOV conference on Thursday. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted to approve a handful of bills that place a strong emphasis on cybersecurity, IT supply chain security, and the enhancement of digital citizen services. […]

The Department of Defense’s release last week of its upgraded cyber strategy understandably drew attention for its focus on the threats from China and Russia in a re-emerging, artificial intelligence-fueled great power competition reminiscent of the Cold War. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s cybersecurity and personnel subcommittees held a joint hearing today to examine the cyber operational readiness of the Department of Defense and heard from leaders of both the military and civilian side of the DoD cyber force about the mounting challenges they face. […]

The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has issued a request for public comment “on ways to advance consumer privacy while protecting prosperity and innovation.”  The comment solicitation, NTIA indicated, is unlikely to lead to any rulemaking process at least in the near term.  […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday released new draft guidance that aims to address both the cybersecurity and privacy risks stemming from the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. […]

LaVerne Council, national managing principal of Enterprise Technology Strategy and Innovation at Grant Thornton, spoke today at the Infor Government Forum about the future opportunities afforded by artificial intelligence (AI), and sought along the way to debunk myths that have inspired some apprehension from the public about the emerging technology. […]

Funding needed for further U.S. research and development of quantum information sciences (QIS) and the computing and other advances that QIS is expected to yield, along with the pressing need to develop a highly skilled workforce to leverage those expected advances, dominated discussion today at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee examining the Department of Energy’s (DoE) efforts in the QIS field. […]

The rate of cloud adoption in the Federal government may not be keeping up with the hype around the new technology or the demands of IT professionals at Federal agencies, according to new research conducted by MeriTalk. […]

A new “strategic overview” document published by the White House’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) says the U.S. government’s efforts to advance quantum information science (QIS) will “focus on a science-first approach that aims to identify and solve Grand Challenges: problems whose solutions enable transformative scientific and industrial progress.” That focus, NSTC said, will […]

The Office of Management and Budget today released a draft of its new Cloud Smart strategy, marking the first update to White House guidance on Federal agency cloud adoption since 2011. With the new draft strategy the administration has broadly highlighted three areas–security, procurement, and workforce–as the foundational areas of the strategy and where it feels that updated guidance is most necessary. […]

As Federal agencies migrate applications to the cloud, data integration can be a major stumbling block that prevents them from reaping the benefits of cloud services. While agencies are putting more applications in cloud environments, often the underlying technologies connecting these applications are still on-premise. As a result, information technology teams must spend time provisioning and maintaining their middleware infrastructure to avoid performance bottlenecks. […]

As the administration makes its push to implement reforms and reorganize government under an audacious plan released on June 21, it’s finding modest success in some areas, but has somewhat faltered on initiatives where it did not cultivate appropriate stakeholder engagement. […]

The National Cyber Strategy policy document released by the White House late Thursday tracks in tone and wording with the tough stance adopted in the Defense Department’s cyber strategy announced earlier this week–including its adoption of a more offensive-minded position than previous written policies–and appears to respond in tone to demands from across the political spectrum that the U.S. fashion policy that will do a better job in creating a deterrence effect against adversaries. […]

The Federal government is continuing its push to update the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative to provide “improved solutions for accessing cloud services while maintaining cybersecurity,” according to the latest progress updates to the President’s Management Agenda (PMA). […]

As the FCC prepares to vote next week on an order that would make it easier for wireless service providers to deploy small wireless antennas and other infrastructure to speed the deployment of fifth-generation–or 5G–services, two of the agency’s five commissioners discussed the pros and cons of taking that course at an event organized by Politico. […]

The Office of Management and Budget recently released its Q3 FY 2018 progress update to the President’s Management Agenda’s cross-agency priority (CAP) goals, and for CAP goal No. 1, IT Modernization, it appears that there has been a notable progression on cloud adoption in the Federal government. […]

The Office of Management and Budget received more than 40 responses to a request for information (RFI) for its planned Government Effectiveness Advanced Research (GEAR) Center, and today a representative from OMB provided more detail about the RFI’s results, the proposed structure of the new center, and where the currently-unspecified amount of “seed funding” for the center would go in order to support various disciplines including Federal IT modernization. […]

Jane Wiseman, senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, has authored a new report–published Tuesday by the IBM Center for the Business of Government–that finds an apparent lack of chief data officers (CDO) among Federal agencies. […]

The Department of Defense released the latest chapter of its cyber strategy on Tuesday, which takes a more offensive stance than its 2015 predecessor and directs DoD to “defend forward, shape the day-to-day competition, and prepare for war” in cyberspace. […]

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Tenable published an advisory Monday revealing a software vulnerability affecting a popular brand of surveillance cameras, whcih could be exploited to gain access to video feeds and potentially “allow attackers to remotely view feeds and tamper with recordings.” […]

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today introduced the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act in the Senate. The House version of the bill (HR 6443), sponsored by Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, passed the House earlier this month. […]