MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

Due to the breadth and depth of cyberattacks and breaches in the Federal government, most especially the Office of Personnel Management, agencies should be implementing a policy of zero trust when it comes to who is accessing their data, according to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. His committee released a report titled “The OPM Data Breach: How the Government Jeopardized Our National Security for More than a Generation.”

Access Now, an organization that advocates for open digital communication, called for the prohibition of government hacking in its report “A Human Rights Response to Government Hacking.”

Industry leaders and government officials disagree about whether encryption is causing the digital space to “go dark” or makes Internet users safer.

Jane Holl Lute, the former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, is scheduled to provide a Tech Talk at the Symantec Government Symposium on Aug. 30 in Washington, D.C. MeriTalk caught up with Lute, who agreed to offer her thoughts on the evolving struggle between privacy and security, and a preview of her presentation.

In the five years since the government has encouraged agencies to transition to the cloud, spending on cloud-based technologies has increased to about 9 percent, which is a good pace, according to Tom Ruff, vice president of Public Sector America at Akamai.

Nuala O’Connor is one of the nation’s leading authorities on technology, security, and privacy. MeriTalk caught up with O’Connor as she prepares to give a Tech Talk at the upcoming Symantec Government Symposium on Aug. 30 in Washington, D.C.

The Delta power outage worried many chief information officers about the stability of their own data center power chains. Data center power outages happen frequently and many cause damage, according to Mark Gaydos of Nlyte.

In the Defense Department’s new strategy document outlining the department’s vision for its future IT environment, CIO Terry Halvorsen argues the complex enterprise network is too difficult to defend, too costly to operate and maintain, and hampers effective information sharing between the military services and the nation’s allies. The strategy outlines eight major goals.

Unified Communications company collab9 is seeking to give Federal agencies both flexibility and security in communication systems through its recent FedRAMP authorization, the first of a Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) provider.

MeriTalk sat down with GSA CIO David Shive to ask some substantial questions about FedRAMP and TTS ahead of MeriTalk’s GSA Forum on FedRAMP and TTS/18F on Sept. 13 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

The General Services Administration on Tuesday released the FedRAMP Readiness Assessment Report, a template that allows cloud service providers to quickly determine whether they are ready to pursue FedRAMP authorization.

The Office of Personnel Management announced today that it has hired Dave DeVries, the principal deputy chief information officer at the Defense Department, to become the agency’s next permanent CIO.

Since 2003, the Office for Civil Rights has settled HIPAA violations to the tune of $36 million, with the two most recent settlements coming from Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

he White House released the Data Center Optimization Initiative, which requires agencies to consolidate inefficient infrastructure, update existing facilities, boost security, save money, and transition to cloud services or inter-agency shared services.

Transparency is key in demonstrating the value of money spent on information technology, according to the Federal Commission on IT Cost, Opportunity, Strategy, and Transparency.

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT.

APIs, known as application program interfaces, and their use with apps might just hold the key to achieving interoperability between electronic health records, or so the Federal government is hoping.

The Democratic National Convention, which meets in Philadelphia this week to nominate the party’s presidential candidate, released its party platform that deals with technology issues including broadband, open Internet, privacy, education, and cybersecurity.

Federal agencies need to adopt a standardized taxonomy for their data, according to authors of the report “Accelerating the Mission: Recommendations for Optimizing Federal Technology Cost and Value in the Age of FITARA.” The report proposes a set of Technology Business Management guidelines that would help agencies communicate with each other, Congress, and the private sector more effectively.