The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced Federal employees will need to wear a mask inside of Federal buildings once again, in light of new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggesting those who are fully vaccinated wear a mask indoors in areas of substantial or high transmission. […]
The White House released a National Security Memorandum (NSM) today containing a new set of actions aimed to strengthen cybersecurity efforts to protect United States critical infrastructure amid the growing number of cyber threats and cyberattacks. […]
The Biden Administration views the future of 5G telecommunications as a key national security issue and a “transformative” technology, Anne Neuberger said today. […]
As the number of cyberattacks impacting critical infrastructure continues to grow, members of Congress and representatives from the Department of Energy (DoE), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed that more needs to be done to protect the electric grid from a potentially “devastating” cyberattack. […]
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology approved four technology and innovation-related bills by voice vote during a markup session on July 27. The committee’s vote sends these four bills to the House floor for further consideration. […]
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a Joint Cyber Planning Office (JCPO), and an official from DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told Congress today the unit will soon launch the effort. […]
The Access Board is looking for a contractor to help the agency move to a new electronic records management system and provide ongoing operation and maintenance, according to a request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov. […]
A State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that the agency lacks integrated financial management and procurement IT systems to support efficient contracting operations and a knowledge management strategy to efficiently store and retrieve essential information. […]
The Senate has confirmed Heidi Shyu, a former assistant secretary of the Army, to serve as the under secretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense (DoD). […]
The House of Representatives passed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Capabilities Enhancement Act on July 20, and the bill now has bipartisan companion legislation in the Senate. […]
Dan McCune, the acting associate deputy assistant secretary of the Enterprise Program Management Office at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), talked about major themes in the agency’s IT modernization approach during a virtual webinar hosted by Federal News Network on July 21. […]
When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began moving to the cloud in 2014, much of the agency’s cloud movement was “lift and shift” – simply moving workloads as-is to the cloud. Over time, IT staff trained themselves on cloud operations and began to take greater advantage of the flexibility and scalability that cloud computing offers. […]
Join MeriTalk on July 29 from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. ET for The Time is Now: Accelerating DoD Enterprise Cloud, a complimentary webinar that will explore additional findings from the study, as well as what’s preventing DoD organizations from migrating to available DoD enterprise clouds and what’s needed to accelerate adoption. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee on July 20 approved and sent to the full House for consideration several bills with Federal tech implications, including measures dealing with artificial intelligence oversight, and Federal hiring for several classes of technology positions. […]
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously approved H.R. 550, the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2021 during a markup session on July 21. The committee’s vote sends the bill to the House floor for further consideration. […]
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the FCC is entering into partnerships with 11 Federal, state, and local agencies to assess the delivery of Wireless Emergency Alerts in areas across the country during a planned nationwide test on August 11. […]
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is requesting information from the private sector on how it might improve the way social media data is collected and archived from previous presidential administrations, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on the SAM.gov website. […]
Without a secure, reliable, and trustworthy digital identity system for people, entities, and things, the increasingly digital new reality is vulnerable to attacks, threatening individual safety and national security. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Office of Information and Technology is seeking a contractor to maintain an Authority to Operate (ATO) for the Social Security Numbers Reduction (SSNR) Tool in the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) environment. […]
Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Tim Kaine, D-Va., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, reintroduced the Chai Suthammanont Remembrance Act on July 14, which requires government agencies to establish COVID-19 safety plans to protect Federal workers returning to the office. […]
Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called for increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), saying CISA “needs to be a $5 billion agency in the next five years.” […]
Federal agency chief information security officers (CISOs) talked about several aspects of the Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) during a July 15 FedInsider webinar in which they flagged steps agencies should be taking to meet the order’s requirements. […]
Bicameral, bipartisan legislation introduced by four lawmakers this week aims to create international security standards with American allies for emerging technology research such as AI and quantum science. […]
Astrophysicist Jedidah Isler has been named the new assistant director of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Opportunity and Engagement at the Science & Society Division within the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 14 voted to approve the Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Act which would establish a pilot program to create a civilian reserve of cybersecurity experts that could be deployed to the Federal government as “surge capacity” in the event of significant security incidents. […]
Michael Brown, who now heads the Defense Department’s (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), has requested that his name be withdrawn from consideration as the nominee for Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment at DoD. […]
Women have climbed the career ladder in government and achieved success through various strategies, from negotiation skills to networking and mentoring, but there’s still further to go. Female Federal leaders discussed the obstacles women face in achieving success, and the best practices to achieve success in the workplace, on July 14 during a Women in Leadership Forum hosted by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council. […]
Federal cyber leaders are working to keep mission-critical data secure and available to employees working from home, in the office, and in the field at the tactical edge. Despite progress and intense focus, a boom in cybersecurity breaches is commanding national attention and highlighting the need for IT and security modernization throughout the Federal government. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today approved two bills that aim to improve the cybersecurity of K-12 education institutions and to train Federal employees to better protect supply chains. […]
The General Services Administration has launched its new Digital.gov Innovation Adoption Community of Practice (CoP) to learn, share, and adopt innovative approaches and new ways of working within organizations. […]