The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today released its Cyber Essentials guide, which it describes as “a starting point for small businesses and government agencies to understand and address cybersecurity risk as they do other risks.” […]
Two senior technology officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spoke in positive terms today about the benefits that cloud services are bringing to the agency, and counseled focusing attention on security responsibilities for other agencies also underrating cloud service adoption. […]
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) endorsed S.?2749, the?DOTGOV?Act of 2019 on Nov. 4. The legislation, introduced by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., ranking member and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, respectively, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and James Lankford, Okla., aims to “strengthen local government cybersecurity defenses by switching to the .gov domain for websites and email addresses.” […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the kick-off of its annual Infrastructure and Security and Resilience Month running through the end of November. […]
Senators and Federal government officials sparred over the country’s 5G-readiness and supply chain security at a hearing today of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. […]
The Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program has an important role to play in protecting Federal systems, but the adoption process can be downright scary for some agencies. On Halloween, MeriTalk will host a webinar to dig through the skeletons and challenges in CDM’s closet, shine a flashlight on the success stories of the program, and ultimately help demystify the CDM program for vendors and agencies alike. […]
The Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act, H.R. 4237, was unanimously approved by the House Homeland Security Committee on Oct. 23. […]
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on securing elections, witnesses from law enforcement agencies were asked a litany of questions related to the security of U.S. elections for 2020, including what kind of new measures were being taken during this cycle. […]
Officials from the Departments of Defense (DoD), Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are bootstrapping an effort to further clarify and detail roles and career paths of the Federal cybersecurity workforce, the officials said Oct. 21 at the ACT-IAC Imagine Nation 2019 conference. […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in an Oct. 11 report that H.R. 1975, the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee Authorization Act of 2019, would cost $2 million dollars over the next five years to implement. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) .gov Cybersecurity Architecture Review program (.govCAR) has been looking at its mobile environment for capabilities and cybersecurity posture. […]
While large-scale IT projects can spell success for Federal agencies in the longer term, smaller and shorter-duration projects may provide a better solution to advance the cause of IT modernization, Federal officials said today. […]
Now seven years from the launch of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, aimed at engineering lasting improvement in Federal agency network security, the move from legacy to cloud-based infrastructure is accelerating rapidly toward the next world of managed services. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) remains highly confident in the agency’s efforts to defend against nation-state cyber threats including those targeting U.S. elections and supply chains, a senior CISA official said today. […]
The House of Representatives has approved the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act (H.R. 3710), which would increase the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) responsibilities in addressing a variety of cybersecurity vulnerabilities. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to improve its cyber workforce planning to meet Congressional mandates and improve the department’s capabilities, according to a report from DHS’ inspector general, released September 23. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee approved legislation on Sept. 25 a cyber committee within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]
With the upcoming release of the Federal Data Strategy’s final action plan on the horizon, Federal chief data officers (CDOs) agreed on Sept. 25 that the strategy holds plenty of promising features to advance their work, including an official CDO council that will help them share ideas and experiences. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) improved its performance on the department’s FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) audit, going from Level 3 in Fiscal Year 2017 to Level 4 in FY2018, an agency inspector general’s report issued this month shows. […]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force’s first interim report, which details the groups’ progress since its formation. […]
Federal cyber officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Cybersecurity of Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) highlighted today that IT modernization and implementing OMB’s guidance are some of their biggest priorities. […]
As the 2020 election cycle revs up, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs said today that he believes new National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien will take security seriously and will allow CISA a great opportunity to continue improving cybersecurity efforts. […]
Federal cybersecurity officials spoke about the strategies they’re pursuing to address workforce issues within their agencies during a Sept. 18 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Summit panel. […]
The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today that the spate of ransomware attacks that hit school systems in Texas and Louisiana over the past month “got pretty close” to qualifying as a “large-scale cyber event,” which he said begs the need to further develop Federal doctrine about how to respond to major events. […]
On Sept. 13, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and government and industry members on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Task Force voted to approve the recommendations of three of the four constituent Working Groups. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs announced the agency’s strategic intent last month at Auburn University, but what does that strategy look like in action? […]
The United States continues efforts to improve election security and cybersecurity posture, but adversarial threats are still present and evolving, experts agree. […]
Kevin Cox, program manager for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, today detailed several priorities for the program office in FY2020 that begins next month. Those include focus on the Agency-Wide Adaptive Risk Enumeration (AWARE) algorithm, the new dashboard ecosystem, enterprise mobility management, cloud security, and protection of high-value assets. […]
Reps. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, and Ro Khana, D-Calif., announced today that they will formally introduce the Advancing Continuous Diagnostics Mitigation (CDM) Act later this week. The House bill, which was dropped off on the House floor today, is identical to its Senate companion bill which was introduced on July 30. […]
Kevin Cox, Program Manager for the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program, sat down with MeriTalk in June to talk about a range of new and ongoing program activities that are vital to improving Federal agency security. […]