Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
Department of Homeland Security DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is creating a standing form to allow industry, academia, and other private sector entities to report vulnerabilities on its networks, an upcoming Federal Register post says. […]

With summer coming to a close and back-to-school season approaching, agencies will need to catch up on their assignment to get task orders in for the next generation of telecommunications contracts – Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions, or EIS. With a September 30 deadline fast approaching, did the class of Federal agencies do their homework on the contract? Current indicators show some progress, but a long way to go. […]

DHS Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is taking a cross-component agency approach in securing DHS’ 17 Security Operations Centers (SOCs), DHS CIO John Zangardi explained in an interview with GovernmentCIO released this week. […]

ICAM

The General Services Administration released a draft catalog of identity and credential access management (ICAM) solutions on August 26, as part of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) updated ICAM policy for agencies. […]

Kevin Cox CDM Program Manager Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program DEFEND
Census 2020 image-min
General Services Administration GSA

The General Services Administration (GSA) utilized the NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contract for $123 million of purchases in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. The contract mainly to provide IT solutions on a faster timeline and offer solutions outside of IT Schedule 70, according to an audit released August 22 by GSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Cemetery Administration launched the first U.S. digital platform to contain memorial pages for the 3.7 million veterans interred in VA national cemeteries. The site, the Veterans Legacy Memorial, went live Aug. 14 and “creates a perpetual memorial extending beyond the physical border of the national cemetery,” VA said. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified an uptick in security gaps in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) information security programs in fiscal year 2018, according to an OIG report released Aug. 23.  […]

House Majority leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is reaffirming congressional Democrats’ opposition to Trump administration’s proposed merger of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) with the General Services Administration (GSA). […]

Cybersecurity cyber

As physical and cybersecurity threats converge to create multi-faceted challenges, organizations need to better plan for security and address all threat vectors, said Brian Harrell, assistant director for infrastructure security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]

Modernization

On August 22, President Trump signed into law the Creating Advanced Streamlined Electronic Services for Constituents Act (CASES Act) which will modernize the inquiry process for constituents by creating electronic forms to improve access and efficiency to Federal services and agencies. […]

FDA website

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new CTO, Vid Desai, began work at the agency on Aug. 19. Desai, who previously worked as Vyaire Medical’s CIO and an executive director at Quintiles Transnational, will work with FDA CIO Amy Abernethy in his new position, which had been vacant for a while. Desai will help lead […]

elections, election security, voting

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its Strategic Intent document on August 22, using election security as a model for how the agency plans to address security threats, and also establishing election security as one of the agency’s operational priorities. […]

Christopher Krebs under secretary undersecretary DHS Department of Homeland Security National Protection and Programs Directorate NPPD leader CISA cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency

Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), today unveiled his “strategic intent” for the agency, which include CISA’s guiding principles and goal of building a collaborative cybersecurity environment in America. […]

Robot

Under a new agreement with state attorneys general, the nation’s largest wireless service providers cell carriers will soon deploy technologies to block and label robocalls for consumers. Josh Stein, attorney general of the State of North Carolina, announced the agreement today. […]

DOJ Department of Justice

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted Robert Wayne Boling Jr., Fredrick Brown, Trorice Crawford, Allan Albert Kerr, and Jongmin Seok for “coordinating an identify-theft and fraud scheme targeting servicemembers and veterans.” […]

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) – a research and development center funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) – found that facial recognition systems can help improve hailstorm predictability and severity by using AI techniques associated with facial recognition technology. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on a report, order, and further notice of proposed rulemaking dealing with the accuracy and usefulness of its Digital Opportunity Data Collection (DODC) that aims to more accurately determine residential and small business locations in the U.S. that do not have access to broadband services. […]

Limited collection of Medicaid data by states is standing in the way of a complete analysis of opioid misuse and abuse within the program, according to an August 15 report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

Zero trust is a simple concept – don’t trust anyone; verify everyone; do it continually – with a more complex goal of ensuring the right people have the right level of access to the right resources in the right context. The model has gained traction across industries, with giants like Google declaring that their internal private network is just as dangerous as the internet. The concept is also gaining momentum within Federal agencies. […]

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reorganization led to gaps in the agency’s compliance with IT policies for its Enterprise Customer Service Solution (ECSS) system, according to an EPA OIG report released August 19. […]

Nearly 20 years after the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) first identified the need to modernize its scheduling system, VA is on track to adopt a permanent scheduling solution as part of its electronic health record (EHR) modernization effort, according to a report from VA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) today. […]

GSA General Services Administration

After seeing the Alliant 2 Small Business governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC) awards rescinded due to a court challenge, the General Services Administration (GSA) released a list of proposed changes to the contract on August 19, expanding the number of awards. […]

NIST

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will be releasing the second volume of an engineering-based guidance that aims at assisting organizations with Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) on September 5, 2019. […]

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