Dell said on Nov. 28 that it “detected and disrupted” unauthorized activity on its network on Nov. 9 that aimed to steal Dell.com customer information including names, email addresses, and hashed passwords, but not credit card or other sensitive data. Dell said “it is possible” that some data was stolen, but that “our investigations found no conclusive evidence that any was extracted.” Dell said its security measures in place–including hashing of customer passwords and a mandatory Dell.com password reset–are in place to limit the impact of any potential data disclosure. The company also said it has hired an digital forensics firm to conduct an independent investigate, and also has “engage law enforcement.” […]
The Department of Health and Human Services on Nov. 28 issued a draft strategy that the agency said is “designed to help reduce administrative and regulatory burdens on clinicians” stemming from use of health information technologies including electronic health records. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs admitted this month that its 10-year, $10 billion-plus project to create an interoperable electronic health record system incurred a $350 million cost overrun right out of the gate–a potential red flag in the latest effort to develop an integrated records system that also works with the Department of Defense’s system. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs said today it is targeting Dec. 1, 2019–a full year from now–to complete a technical fix to address problems that have plagued the agency’s ability to correctly calculate monthly housing allowance payments under the 2017 Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, also known as the “Forever GI Bill.” […]
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos highlighted the success of the Department of Education’s mobile applications during a speech on Tuesday, pointing to their convenience and ability to reach citizens in an effective manner. […]
The Department of Justice said today it indicted eight people from Russia and Kazakhstan allegedly involved in two cybercriminal rings engaged in digital advertising fraud. […]
General Services Administration officials said today they expect their plan to consolidate 24 multiple award schedules into a single schedule for products and services to take about two years to complete, and that the effort is expected to yield workforce cost savings and efficiencies for both GSA and private sector partners that sell to the Federal government. […]
In an Inspector General (IG) report released Nov. 20, the Department of the Interior got taken to task for allowing an employee to visit 9,000 pornographic websites in under seven months. This is the IG second report chastising the department for an employee viewing porn on agency time and technology. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) released a request for information detailing part of the Federal Acquisition Service’s (FAS’) new CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation contract–named COMET for short–and highlighted the guiding principles of cloud-native solutions, SecDevOps, and data management. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced on Tuesday that the agency is condensing its 24 multiple award schedules, including IT Schedule 70, into a single schedule for products and services, in a move that it says will simplify acquisitions for Federal agencies. […]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is looking to use cloud services to speed up the agency’s scientific discoveries and offer researchers more tools through a new program named Exploring Clouds for Acceleration of Science, or E-CAS. […]
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that while the CIO of the U.S. Secret Service had implemented most IT oversight responsibilities, the agency still needs to improve its workforce planning and management practices. […]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to record compromised taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) for 89 breaches reported to the agency by outside organizations, putting over 11,000 taxpayers at risk and leading to tax return fraud for 79 citizens, according to an audit conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). […]
The Government Accountability Office recommended in a Nov. 20 report that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) improve its website and take more steps to share “innovations in performance management” with other Federal agencies. […]
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Tuesday her intention to restore the Elections Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration, which was created during the 110th Congress but abolished in 2013. Pelosi, who will likely be elected House majority leader when Democrats take control of the House in January, also announced that Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, will serve as chairwoman of the subcommittee. […]
After years of speculation and some significant recent advancements as the next great thing, quantum computing is getting ready to throw down against classical supercomputers. […]
Federal agencies are using the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to manage their agencies’ cybersecurity risk, a year after the White House issued an executive order directing the heads of executive agencies and departments to use the NIST framework, according to an agency official. […]
The State Department is standing up a cloud program office and taking the opportunity to modernize both systems across the department, according to Brian Merrick, deputy director of cloud program management at the State Department. […]
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on Nov. 19 seeking public comment on “criteria for identifying emerging technologies” that are essential to U.S. national security and that may be included in possible future export control regulations. […]
Christopher Krebs, head of the newly minted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offered his vision for the agency’s future, and how component-agency status will allow the organization to reach its full potential, during an event hosted by the Chamber of Commerce on November 16. […]
The Department of Transportation’s (DoT) Inspector General has flagged several broad cybersecurity categories as “top management challenges” for the agency in FY 2019, including what it called some “longstanding security weaknesses.” […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen emphasized the need for industry and government to consistently work together to thwart threats and defend critical infrastructure within an agenda of “relentless resilience,” during a speech on Nov. 16 at an event organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) on Friday announced that S&T and the Dutch government are each putting up $1.25 million to fund “collaborative cybersecurity research and development” across five U.S.-Dutch research teams. […]
Michael Horowitz, inspector general of the Justice Department and chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), said today that the Oversight.gov website launched by CIGIE now has reports from 70 of the 73 Federal inspectors general, up from 67 IGs when the site was unveiled about a year ago. […]
Creation of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)–long a goal of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stand up a dedicated component agency focused on cybersecurity–became a reality Friday as President Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018 into law. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) plans on proposing new rules in the Federal Register next spring for Federal contractors that would put the responsibility on contractors to report any cyber incident that potentially compromises systems or information owned by the government. […]
In a letter released Thursday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., questioned the Trump administration’s commitment to election security and pressed administration officials to communicate more clearly with Congress about the issue. […]
The Office of Financial Research (OFR), which is an independent bureau within the Department of the Treasury, said in its 2018 Annual Report to Congress on Thursday that cybersecurity “a key risk” to U.S. financial stability. […]
Bulgarian police announced Nov. 8 that they have arrested Alexander Zhukov, a Russian national and suspected cybercriminal, on behalf of the United States. […]
The private sector is the prime driver for Congress to take up data privacy legislation in 2019, industry panelists said Thursday at an event organized by Bloomberg Government. […]