Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director Christopher Krebs said that a strategic risk assessment of 5G technology would be completed within “a couple months” at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. […]

Several senators said today that high-profile private-sector data breaches like those disclosed by Equifax in 2017 and Marriott in 2018 serve to boost the urgency with which Congress should act to approve legislation that would implement the country’s first national private-sector cybersecurity regulations and procedures. […]

U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), today publicly questioned the priority given by Federal agency heads to cybersecurity issues that have long been flagged by GAO on its “High Risk List,” the latest biennial edition of which was issued by the agency today. […]

During a meeting with reporters, Federal CIO Suzette Kent highlighted the successes of the Federal Cyber Reskilling Academy so far, and raised the potential of expanding the program in the future. […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved the nominations of former FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc and Aditya Bamzai, formerly of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and National Security Division, to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). […]

The Senate may actively take up national data privacy legislation someday, but one key senator in the process indicated today that there is currently little institutional urgency to hurry toward that goal. […]

On Tuesday, the House Committee on Homeland Security convened for a hearing on securing U.S. surface transportation from cyberattacks. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund’s (TMF) website shows minimal or no spend thus far on the projects for which $89 million of funding has been awarded. […]

Senators during an Energy and Natural Resources Senate Committee hearing Thursday called for more urgency regarding cyberattacks on the energy grid. […]

A report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that passage of an internet privacy law plus expanded authorities could help the Federal government better protect consumer privacy, adding ammo to the recent push for a national data privacy law. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) board announced $20.7 million in funding for a Federal-wide project for commercial payroll and scheduling software-as-a-service (SaaS) to be managed by the General Services Administration (GSA). […]

Steve Harris runs Dell EMC Federal. His office in McLean, Virginia, a stone’s throw from the nation’s capital, is a long way from the tiny town where he grew up: Wellsville, New York – population 7,000. I sat down with the one-time aspiring professional golfer to discuss how he got into IT, and his vision for Dell Technologies’ position in the changing Federal market. A fellow USO-Metro board member, Harris is hitting a hole-in-one at Dell EMC Federal. […]

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced today that Clare Martorana would replace a retiring David Garcia as CIO. […]

Less than two weeks after the end of the partial Federal government shutdown and with the looming threat of another such disruption coming on Feb. 15, will Federal government IT officials in large numbers be making the trip out west to the U.S.’s preeminent cybersecurity conference next month? […]

While their committee assignment paths have diverged since Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in January, Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., pledged Wednesday night to continue their close working relationship on Federal IT issues both on the policy and funding sides of the equation. […]

At MeriTalk’s FITARA Awards ceremony on Wednesday night, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Government Operations Subcommittee, offered his views on what Congress needs to tackle next in Federal IT, and previewed three likely pieces of legislation. […]

MeriTalk has announced the winners of its FITARA Awards for the seventh iteration of the FITARA Scorecard released in December, recognizing seven agencies for their progress in IT modernization. […]

Participants described how their participation in Jack Voltaic 2.0, a joint exercise between the City of Houston and the Army Cyber Institute held in July 2018, opened their eyes to the threats of a combined cyber and physical attack on critical infrastructure. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the appointment of Christine Calvosa as the new CIO of the agency. […]

If you take a look at MeriTalk’s newly released FITARA Dashboard, be ready to find some clear success stories across the seven categories of the FITARA Scorecard – as well as areas where improvement still is needed. […]

If recent events are any indication, we could be seeing big changes to agency cloud migration plans in 2019. The Federal government could be rethinking its role in owning and operating its own data centers, strongly questioning whether that is a job best left to government employees. […]

Technology experts speaking at the State of the Net conference today agreed that comprehensive legislation and enforcement is necessary to better protect consumer data, and that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should play a bigger role in that enforcement. […]

MeriTalk today announced the launch of its FITARA Dashboard, a publicly-viewable resource that brings the latest congressional scoring of Federal agency information technology modernization progress into clearer focus, and provides analytical tools to perform detailed comparisons of how 24 major Federal agencies have achieved progress toward their goals over the past three years. […]

The Federal IT market grew by 9.5 percent in fiscal year 2018 to reach a total of $64.7 billion dollars, which marks an all-time high, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Government. […]

A former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Thursday she believes that while the agency’s core cybersecurity operations are holding up through the partial Federal government shutdown, other important IT security initiatives appear to be lying fallow until the agency receives funding to operate and pay its employees. […]

Yesterday, 13 Democratic Senators signed and sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Joe Simons expressing their concerns over the FTC’s ability to monitor and respond to phone spam and robocalls during the partial government shutdown. […]

Dorris Consulting International is seeking nominations for its 2019 Service to the Citizens Awards, which aim to recognize “those public servants who demonstrate excellence in their delivery of services that impact the public’s lives” through the organization’s Champions of Change Program. […]

Federal IT oversight will be the domain of the Subcommittee on Government Operations in the House Committee Oversight and Reform, and there will be no IT Subcommittee this session of Congress, said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, during an interview on Tuesday’s episode of Government Matters TV. […]

The “End The Shutdown And Secure The Border Act,” touted by President Trump as a “commonsense compromise” funding bill to end the partial federal government shutdown and set to be introduced in the Senate, includes $25 million in FY 2019 funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) – mirroring the funding level set in H.R. 648, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, set to be considered in the House this week. […]

A House-Senate conference committee has pegged FY 2019 funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) at just $25 million, according to text of legislation made public by the House Rules Committee and set to be considered by the committee, and possibly by the House, next week. […]