Microsoft on Monday announced the general availability of Power BI Pro and HD Insights data visualization tools and a preview of its Cognitive Insights on the Azure Government cloud.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he plans to introduce legislation that would restrict law enforcement’s ability to search and demand passwords to the phones and online accounts of foreign travelers.
The General Services Administration’s information security practices contain deficiencies in five of eight FISMA program areas, according to an independent evaluation done by KPMG, a professional auditing company.
Though FITARA scorecards provide important insights into IT modernization efforts, the current scorecard format needs improvements to accurately evaluate agency progress, according to agency CIOs.
The latest draft of President Donald Trump’s long-awaited executive order on cybersecurity requires a plan for transitioning all Federal agencies to shared services for email, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, and directs senior officials to study the feasibility of transitioning agencies to one or more consolidated network architectures.
Agency chief information officers realize the need to convert from on-premise data centers to the cloud, but still find it challenging to convince agency heads that it’s a necessary step. David Bray, CIO of the Federal Communications Commission, said Feb. 8 at the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group meeting, “If you are wedded to legacy systems you are trying to turn a battleship very, very slowly.”
Congress will pursue IT modernization legislation just as meticulously as in the last Congress, in large part due to the high retention of active representatives in the last election, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said at the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group’s Destination Cloud event.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Email Privacy Act, a bill that would amend Title 18 of the United States Code to include privacy protections for electronic communications stored on third-party servers.
The General Services Administration announced that cloud.gov, 18F’s service that enables Federal agencies to host and update websites and Web applications, had obtained a Provisional Authority to Operate from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board.
The Federal CIO Council’s State of Federal Information Technology report stated that Federal agencies spent more than $2 billion on cloud computing services in Fiscal Year 2016. Rob Stein, vice president of Public Sector for NetApp, said that amount will increase this year.
The Department of Homeland Security continues to use unsupported operating systems that may expose agency data to unnecessary risks, according to a recent evaluation issued by DHS Office of Inspector General.
Microsoft announced that its Azure and Office 365 cloud service became the first commercial cloud to be awarded Impact Level 5 DoD Provisional Authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency, which allows the cloud to store the most sensitive, controlled, unclassified information. Microsoft also announced general availability of the service to all validated Department of Defense customers.
Centrify and SailPoint Technologies have tools to address the tasks outlined in Phase 2 of the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program, according to representatives from the companies and DHS itself.
General Dynamics Information Technology is on a mission–to help agencies make sense of cloud computing. Cloud migration can be challenging–agencies are constrained by regulations, pressed by tight budgets, and limited by legacy systems. But, those anxieties don’t need to stifle innovation.
The merger of the two leading FedRAMP third-party assessment organizations is raising significant concerns about the ability of small and midsized businesses to compete for Federal cloud contracts. Coalfire, the No. 2 FedRAMP 3PAO, announced last month it has acquired Veris Group, the leading provider of the mandatory security assessments for cloud service providers that want to sell their products and services to Federal agencies.
Renee Wynn, chief information officer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said that the agency’s internal Business Service Assessment can account for its improvement in IT management.
Education on how Federal programs can best use the cloud is going to pick up this year as agencies continue the transition away from legacy IT, according to Rob Morrow, public sector chief technology officer at Cloudera.
The Department of Transportation’s F+ on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard does not reflect all of the agency’s compliance work, according to a DOT spokesperson who asked to remain anonymous.
Despite new policies designed to give chief information officers more spending power, some Federal CIOs don’t see any improvement in acquiring the technology they need to keep their systems secure.
Luke McCormack, the chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security, submitted his resignation today.
One agency received an overall F on its Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard—and it was not the agency that has failed the past two times.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., is concerned that Federal Chief Information Officers are struggling to make sure their agencies follow the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.
An effort to block or delay changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure failed to pass the Senate floor, causing the changes to the rule to go into effect on Dec. 1. The changes will allow law enforcement to obtain warrants to search computers in an unknown location and to search any device that the hacker has broken into, potentially granting access to multiple privately owned computers with one warrant.
The US-CERT cybersecurity incident notification guidelines that go into effect April 1, 2017, will affect all Federal departments and agencies, as well as state, local, tribal, and territorial government entities, among others.
The General Services Administration is working on a new approach to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which would allow agencies to bypass certain security requirements based on the type of data being collected.
The Office of the Inspector General at the Office of Personnel Management audited the agency’s security programs and practices under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act and found a significant deficiency in OPM’s security management structure.
Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor responsible for leaking information about the U.S. government’s mass surveillance program in 2013, spoke about the impact that President-elect Donald Trump could have on online privacy: “What we need to start thinking about now is not how we defend against a President-elect Trump, but how we defend the rights of everyone everywhere.”
Censeo Consulting Group worked with Cyrrus Analytics and Hettinger Strategy Group to create the report “FITARA at a Crossroads.” MeriTalk summarizes the 10 recommendations.
In the push to modernize legacy IT systems, agencies should be more strategic about which systems they choose to invest in, according to experts at Dell EMC World.
Sheila Yahyazadeh, senior consultant of KPMG’s Federal sector, said that Federal agencies’ disappointing scores on the FITARA report card could be an opportunity for learning and growth.