With the year quickly coming to a close, the FedRAMP Authorization Act will be one of Rep. Gerry Connolly’s “big priorities” for legislation, with a markup session expected when the House returns from its August recess, Connolly said during MeriTalk’s Cyber Security Brainstorm today. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) recommends that agencies use IT Schedule 70 to procure solutions to implement Technology Business Management (TBM) practices – including advanced tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics process automation (RPA) – alongside IT financial management solutions. […]

The FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard issued twice per year by the House Oversight and Reform Committee is likely to see some changes in the near term due to the need for new data sources, new policies, and shifting congressional priorities, said Kevin Walsh, FITARA executive at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]

Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, reintroduced the Advancing Cybersecurity Continuing Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Act on July 30. […]

A new survey from the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) finds that data privacy and security concerns are generally shared across generations, with broad support for a national privacy law. […]

The American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) has updated its IT Management and Maturity Model to mirror the changes in the FITARA scorecard. […]

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) needs to do more to help Federal agencies with FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) compliance, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. […]

Leadership of the House Government Reform Subcommittee introduced legislation today that would codify into law the FedRAMP (Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program), and take a number of other actions aimed at making the program work more efficiently. […]

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) today announced the launch of its Ideation Challenge that aims to inform the next iteration of the program’s processes and supporting functions. […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) BI is looking to map its IT architecture as it implements Technology Business Management (TBM), and is investigating if industry can meet the bureau’s needs. The FBI issued a request for information for a commercial tool on July 23, with responses due by August 20. […]

Department of Agriculture (USDA) CIO Gary Washington said today that his agency is focusing on boosting its FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) grades by the time the House Oversight and Reform Committee issues its next set of scores – expected in December – and is confident that the agency can accomplish that goal. […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) did not fully assess and authorize all of its cloud systems and did not effectively communicate with the FedRAMP program management office, leaving its cloud security at risk, according to an inspector general report published July 17. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a request for information (RFI) on July 16 for Information Assurance Compliance System (IACS) tools that can support FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) compliance checks and reporting. […]

The Federal CIO Council announced in a July 16 blog post that it will launch a Federal Mobility Group (FMG) composed of existing Federal mobile tech programs. […]

Risk management in the modern age is largely about cyber hygiene, said Wanda Jones-Heath, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the U.S. Air Force’s Office of the Deputy CIO, today. […]

The July 13 deadline for all Federal agencies to install a Chief Data Officer (CDO) has come and gone. Among the 24 CFO Act agencies, half have named a CDO and the other 12 appear to still be working on it. […]

Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Subcommittee on Government Reform today previewed their bipartisan effort to create legislation that would codify into law the FedRAMP (Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program) program that standardizes security requirements of cloud services used by the government, and make the FedRAMP program operate more efficiently. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee’s hearing on the role of FedRAMP in IT modernization is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., on Wednesday, July 17. […]

Matt Goodrich, a senior advisor at the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation organization and former director of the FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) program, announced in a tweet today that he will depart Federal service on July 26. […]

Several high-ranking Federal agency tech leaders are set to testify before the House Government Operations Subcommittee on July 17 when it holds a hearing to consider the effectiveness of the FedRAMP (Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program) program that standardizes security requirements of cloud services used by the government. […]

MeriTalk recently connected with George Young, Vice President of U.S. Public Sector at Elastic, for insight into how the Department of Homeland Security’s CDM (Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation) Program might soon evolve. […]

Most Federal agencies earned stable scores in the latest FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, but two big shifts in the way the committee reached those grades could portend significant changes going forward. […]

Several Federal IT industry stalwarts offered praise today for the important role that FITARA (the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) has played in pushing Federal agencies toward greater IT modernization, and for the opportunities for further progress that the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA Scorecard helps to clarify for Federal CIOs. […]

The chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Reform delivered a clear to-do list on Thursday to Federal CIOs: pursue further data center consolidation, tighten the reporting lines between CIOs and agency heads, and craft better roadmaps for IT modernization. […]

Congressional concerns over the revision to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI) policy were a main focal point during a hearing on the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard 8.0 today. […]

The House voted today to approve $35 million of FY2020 funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), which provides money to Federal agencies to pursue promising IT modernization projects. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee’s latest report card on how the 24 largest Federal agencies are progressing on critical IT initiatives reveals a core of relatively stable agency scores, but with several big twists that significantly impact grades for most agencies. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) netted its highest grade on the FITARA (Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard yet, earning a C+ on the eighth version of the biannual scorecard released today by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., is offering an amendment to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (HR 3351) that would boost the FY2020 budget for the Technology Modernization Fund by $15 million, to a total of $50 million. […]

A bill being readied by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Josh Hawley R-Mo., would require large online service providers to give users regular assessments of the monetary value of the data that consumers provide to them. […]