There are many facets to Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM), from building trust with vendors and users to assessing manufacturing specs. During a virtual summit hosted by FCW on Oct. 20, current and former officials from NASA explained the must-have factors in the agency’s SCRM to decide what products are safe to use for applications. […]

Federal cyber leaders and government agencies are pushing forward with Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) and Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) initiatives to address vulnerabilities and prevent further incidents from compromising critical systems. […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee’s proposed Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) funding bill proposes no new funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), which at the moment is flush with cash and in the process of farming out $1 billion of funding approved under the American Rescue Plan Act to help Federal agencies modernize their IT systems and improve cybersecurity. […]

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) project for further development of its Login.gov authentication and identity proofing services won by far the largest share of funding from the Technology Modernization Fund’s (TMF) awards totaling $311 million announced late last month. […]

Federal agency chief information officer (CIO) reporting lines – long a mainstay for critical review by the House Oversight and Reform Committee in its semi-annual FITARA Scorecard that rates Federal agencies on key IT effectiveness measures – are taking center stage in a new report from the Labor Department’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

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. […]

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. […]

The $1 billion of new funding that the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) received earlier this year under the American Rescue Plan Act was welcomed by chief information officers (CIOs) from numerous agencies, but many CIOs are saying the new infusion of money is not enough for IT modernization needs. […]

Several Federal government officials involved in migrating government agencies toward adoption of zero trust security principles agreed during a September 30 ATARC webinar that agencies need to first think through the goals of adopting zero trust architectures before undertaking technology deployments to get there. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board on September 30 announced seven new awards totaling $311 million to fund Federal agency investments into zero trust networking and digital identity, standardizing secure data and information sharing, and improving interagency collaboration. […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is looking to enhance its cybersecurity efforts with zero trust security concepts, according to the Corps’ Chief Information Officer (CIO), Dovarius Peoples. […]

The Department of Commerce’s (DoC) Bureau of Industry and Security published a request for comments to gain feedback on what should be included in a report on supply chains for critical sectors and subsectors of the information and communications technology (ICT) industrial base. […]

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said on Sept. 15 that the United States’ supply chains are not resilient, and strengthening those supply chains is going to be critical for U.S. competitiveness going forward. […]

Federal CIO Clare Martorana today previewed the goals of ongoing efforts and forthcoming direction from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on improving customer/citizen experience (CX) with the Federal government, and set the bar high for expectations for service improvements that will follow. […]

StateRAMP, the nonprofit formed earlier this year by leaders from state and local governments and the private sector to help state and local governments manage their third party supplier cybersecurity risks, has released the initial roster of its Authorized Vendor List (AVL). […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee was still in the process late Monday of marking up its portion of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill working its way through the House, but at our deadline was making a big splash with $10 billion of proposed funding for supply chain security. […]

Now that the Office and Management and Budget (OMB) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have released their new directives for Federal civilian agencies to move to zero trust security principles and expanded cloud adoption, what are some near-term steps that Federal IT and cybersecurity officials should think about as they get ready to put those directives into action? […]

The Biden administration’s latest set of directives that aim to move Federal agencies toward zero-trust security architectures and more cloud adoption are receiving positive initial reviews from Federal IT officials, although leaving some to wonder where funding will come from for agencies to follow through on the directives. […]

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both published key draft guidance documents today that provide the next set of road maps for Federal civilian agencies to transition to zero trust security concepts over the next three years and to guide agencies to securely migrate to cloud services. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) announced today that Raylene Yung will lead the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) as its executive director. […]

Federal IT modernization may see a significant increase in funding, $3.35 billion to be exact, if an amendment from Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., is successful. […]

Nicolas Chaillan, the first-ever chief software officer (CSO) of the United States Air Force (USAF) and co-lead of the Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative, announced his resignation today in a post on LinkedIn. […]

Like all Federal agencies, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is working on complying with President Biden’s cyber executive order (EO). To help comply with the EO and aid OPM’s modernization mission, the agency has funding requests out to the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board to help OPM with the move to zero trust and cloud modernization, OPM CIO Guy Cavallo said August 31. […]

Ransomware attacks are on the rise and adversaries are developing more sophisticated cyberattacks, but Federal cyber experts agree that “the vast majority” of ransomware attacks active today can be prevented by good basic cyber hygiene practices. […]

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is making bids with the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) for funding that will help the agency improve cybersecurity and replace legacy systems that run high-value assets, said Sheena Burrell, NARA’s Deputy CIO, at a GovLoop event on August 19. […]

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization journey can sometimes be a confusing one to navigate, but experts agree that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) formats are helping to speed the FedRAMP approval process. […]

With the coronavirus pandemic continuing to provide a stubborn barrier to full-fledged office workplace returns for many Federal agencies, the Commerce Department’s chief information security officer (CISO) spoke on August 17 about paying attention to human-centric aspects of security in the development of next-generation workplaces. […]

Congratulations go out to CIOs and tech staffs from the General Services Administration (GSA) for top score – and to the Department of the Interior (DoI) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) for most improved scores – on the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA 12.0 Scorecard issued on July 28. […]

As the ink is still drying – or its equivalent for a liquid crystal display screen – on the 12th edition of the House Government Operations Subcommittee’s Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard, I pondered the question about whether and how the same measurement could be applied to state-level IT operations and progress. […]

An August 10 memo from Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is providing instructions to Federal agencies about how to comply with security guidance of “critical software” as directed by President Biden’s executive order (EO) on cybersecurity issued in May. […]