The emergence of adversarial artificial intelligence (AI) requires special attention. AI users need to understand the threat space and organize responsible AI mitigations, said Pamela Isom, director of the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO) at the Department of Energy (DoE), on Oct. 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]
The Defense Digital Service (DDS) is repurposing its automated background investigations prototype to focus on insider threats, which includes a name change from the System for Automated Background Evaluation and Review (SABER) to the System for Insider Threat Hindrance (SITH). […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) has wholly transformed the way employees are recruited, hired, trained, evaluated, and even fired. However, employers must find the right division of labor between AI and human resources personnel between using AI to improve human decision-making and delegating decision-making entirely to algorithms, said Keith Sonderling, commissioner for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), on Oct 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]
For many government agencies, Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology has formed the core of their networks for decades. Because many mission-critical operations run on TDM services, organizations often took an ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to TDM. Today, TDM technologies are at end of life – or beyond – and expertise in them is quickly dwindling. […]
Democrats in both the House and Senate have introduced bills to fund a cybersecurity grant education program at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). […]
NASA officials predict that the agency’s latest state-of-the-art satellites – launching soon – will generate an unprecedented amount of data that will be difficult to manage and optimize with NASA’s current software. Therefore, NASA researchers have turned to cloud computing to make the most of that treasure trove of information. […]
The U.S. Army announced it has delayed the rollout of its augmented reality headsets, which it expected to be in use this fall, until September 2022. […]
While increasing workforce diversity is a top focus for many Federal agencies, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat and Marine Corps Deputy CIO Renata Spinks stressed this week that diversity must include diversity of thought, not just diversity of culture. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for new solutions that incorporate biometric technology to help monitor its employees’ health and stress levels from work and at home, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on SAM.gov. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched “The Time is Now: Advancing Equity in Science and Technology Ideation Challenge” on Oct. 14 to ensure all Americans can partake in the science and technology landscape. […]
While Federal government cybersecurity dominates news headlines this year – from the Biden administration’s executive order (EO) to the spate of high-profile attacks on government and private sector targets – Federal government chief information security officers emphasized this week the importance of tried and true best practices, current tooling, and workforce education in the campaign to improve defenses. […]
With President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) directing Federal agencies to begin moving to zero trust security architectures, agencies already have begun to make the shift. However, progress on zero trust migration – which some Federal officials termed a “paradigm shift” at an ATARC webinar today – will look different for every agency. […]
As the cyber threat landscape continues to morph for entities at the Federal level, so too does it change for governments at the state, local, and tribal level. For the state of Illinois, adding cyber into emergency management and working closely with counties has helped to better prepare the state for cyber threats. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has committed more than $1 billion in additional funding for the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) program. […]
The Biden-Harris Administration is taking steps this week to gin up international support to fight ransomware as the White House National Security Council (NSC) hosts a two-day virtual assembly with 30 foreign partners to discuss joint efforts to counter the attacks. […]
The Department of Transportation (DoT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) completed a quality control review (QCR) of KPMG’s report on DoT’s compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act), and concurred with KPMG’s four recommendations to improve the agency’s compliance with the DATA Act. […]
The Biden administration is launching a whole-of-government initiative today to provide actionable climate information to Americans, including a redesigned Climate.gov website that now utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to improve access to critical climate information. […]
Cybersecurity is the ultimate team sport, Jim Richberg says in a new MeriTV interview. It requires greater public-private cyber information sharing – called for in the May Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO) and backed up by several new pieces of legislation – but the conditions for it must be established over time, he advised. […]
For nearly two years, the Federal government has gone without a Federal chief statistician, but the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is looking to change that. […]
In a recent letter to the Department of Justice (DoJ), the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Department of State (State Department), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lawmakers urge the agencies to pursue all options available to protect American communities and infrastructure from the growing threat of ransomware. They emphasized the need for stronger coordination between departments, primarily to address the role of cryptocurrency in ransomware attacks. […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint AI Center (JAIC) is soliciting help from industry to figure out what ways the center can use AI to automate the procurement process. The JAIC will have acquisition authority beginning in fiscal year 2022, and the solicitation will look to help make that process easier. […]
Bipartisan legislation was introduced in the House last week to boost U.S. supply chains and foster domestic manufacturing of “critical goods” by creating a Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response Office in the Department of Commerce. […]
With Federal agencies needing to move the bulk of their workforce to remote or hybrid environments since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program has worked with agencies to account for the increase in attack vectors and take a more proactive risk management stance, CDM Program Lead Richard Grabowski said. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on October 6 to advance three Biden administration nominations to the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB). The committee’s action sends the nominations to the full Senate for consideration. […]
As part of a broader effort to enhance national security efforts at the agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced the creation of a new chief technology officer (CTO) position, and a new Transnational and Technology Mission Center. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program has been under fire in recent months after two VA Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) reports revealed program missteps and underreported, unreported, or unknown program costs. In response, the VA pledged to provide a full lifecycle cost estimate of the program – which Congress wanted to see within 90 days – but a VA official said today that the cost estimate will take at least 12 months to complete. […]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., introduced a bicameral bill this week that would require ransomware victims to report to the government when they have paid a ransom, with an aim of bolstering the flow of critical cybersecurity data. […]
The White House will host an international ransomware gathering next week aimed at improving international cooperation among governments in the fight against ransomware-driven cyberattacks, said Jeff Greene, chief of cyber response and policy for the White House’s National Security Council. […]
Reps. John Katko, R-N.Y., and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., introduced a bipartisan bill in the House this week that aims to protect systemically important critical infrastructure (SICI) from cyberattacks. […]
The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) has successfully enrolled all Department of Defense (DoD) service members, civilians, and contractors with a security clearance, meaning that 3.6 million people are now in DCSA’s continuous vetting program. […]