A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Indian Health Service, and Small Business Administration (SBA) are using security tools given to them by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they’re intended: to identify hardware and software on their networks that may have vulnerabilities and insecure configurations. But GAO said the agencies have more to do manage their network in order to optimize the value of the tools. […]

As state and local leaders continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an update to its Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers Guidance. Version 4.0, released today, provides guidance for jurisdictions and critical infrastructure owners to ensure that essential workers can work safely while supporting ongoing infrastructure operations across the nation.   […]

Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have introduced legislation that would require Federal agencies to maximize telework for Federal employees for the length of the COVID-19 public health emergency. […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched the final version of Special Publication (SP) 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture on August 11. […]

Ten report cards deep into its five-year history, it’s clear that the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard has succeeded in its overarching mission – helping to shape Federal agency IT performance for the better. […]

Officials with several leading Federal IT service providers applauded government agency grades on last week’s FITARA Scorecard, but also suggested a range of grading category adjustments for the scorecard to better track where agency performance should be going in the future. […]

Cloud security provider Zscaler said it is making progress in efforts to obtain “High Impact” level classification under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) for its Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) service – a secure internet and web gateway  solution that was the first product of its kind to receive to earn FedRAMP certification earlier this year. […]

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) earned an “A” grade on the tenth version of the FITARA Scorecard issued this week by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, according to amended data provided by the Government Operations Subcommittee on August 4. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released August 3 that Federal agencies still need to take action on about one-fifth of the cybersecurity recommendations that GAO has issued over the past ten years, and warned of increasing security risks until agencies address them. […]

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., proposed in a July 31 letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to engineer a dramatic, long-term funding increase for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) by moving $2 billion of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) IT modernization work to the front of the TMF funding line. […]

Federal government IT and its ability to deliver vital services to citizens is often said to be one of the few notably bipartisan issues left in Congress, and that sentiment was on clear display as the House Government Operations Subcommittee unveiled its tenth FITARA Scorecard at a public hearing on August 3. […]

MeriTalk connected with David Siles, Global Field Chief Technology Officer at Rubrik, to discuss the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program and the importance of data protection and cloud management in the Federal government’s new telework environment. […]

Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat, who began in her current position eight weeks ago after serving as CIO at the Small Business Administration (SBA) during the hectic initial upswing of the coronavirus pandemic, discussed the fast pace of modernization efforts at Federal agencies in recent months, and how critical funding is to keep those efforts going. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, sounded an upbeat tone on the FITARA Scorecard issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee today, but pointed to more work that needs to be done across the government and in Congress to spur further IT modernization. […]

Two former Federal CIOs gave a strong thumbs-up today to the latest round of major Federal agency grades issued in the tenth version of the FITARA Scorecard issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee is leaning toward switching up its FITARA Scorecard grading categories, according to the scorecard data released today. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) took top marks on the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA Scorecard 10.0 released by the Government Operations Subcommittee today.
The General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) took top marks on the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA Scorecard 10.0 released by the Government Operations Subcommittee today. […]

The tenth version of the FITARA Scorecard released today shows that changes to agencies’ data center optimization initiative (DCOI) and cybersecurity efforts were leading factors in whether their overall grades changed since the previous scorecard. […]

A vast majority of Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) stakeholders agree the DHS program is more important than ever considering the COVID-19 pandemic and the Federal government’s transition to “maximized telework.” […]

Six Senate Democrats urged leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee to include a $1 billion Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) funding boost in the HEALS Act pandemic relief legislation introduced earlier this week. […]

Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat, Education Department CIO Jason Gray, and Office of Personnel Management CIO Clare Martorana top the witness list for the House Government Operations Subcommittee’s Aug. 3 hearing to release the tenth version of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard. The hearing will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern time. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board has awarded $15 million of funding to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) organization to transform its Collections platform into a modern, cloud-based system. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee is planning to hold a hearing on August 3 at 2 p.m. EST to release the tenth version of the FITARA Scorecard, according to a knowledgeable source. […]

As crunch time approaches in Congress on a new round of pandemic relief legislation, a group of Democratic lawmakers including leaders of the House Oversight and Reform Committee urged House leadership in a July 24 letter to include in any bill at least $1 billion of additional funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). […]

Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program Manager Kevin Cox on July 21 discussed the importance of data quality in the CDM ecosystem that stretches from sensors on Federal agency networks, up to agency-level dashboards, and then through to a Federal-level dashboard that gives the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) a wide view of the civilian Federal agency security posture. […]

The House voted late on July 20 to include in the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislation that would codify into law the FedRAMP program – giving the program a statutory foundation and formal standing for congressional review. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Government Operations Subcommittee and a leading voice in Congress for IT modernization, emphasized today that the effectiveness of Federal and state IT systems carries tremendous weight in government’s ability to help the nation through the coronavirus pandemic. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee plans to hold a hearing July 30 to discuss the upcoming tenth version of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard that is issued every six months by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. […]

Federal IT’s ability to sustain delivery of vital services to citizens stands out as one of the brightest aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. MeriTalk is chronicling the untold stories of that heavy lift, and the lessons it holds for the future as the nation embarks on the journey toward a more certain future. In the latest chapter of CIO Crossroads, we look at the U.S. Army’s IT evolution four months into the fight. […]

Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program Manager Kevin Cox said this week that the program is placing particular focus on helping agencies better understand and architect security structures for cloud and mobility-based data. […]