Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
DHS Homeland Security
Medical IOT

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on Monday, calling for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve its approach to cybersecurity for medical devices already on the market, and praising FDA’s early response to the report’s criticisms. […]

Military Cyber Soldier modernization DoD Department of Defense

The Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday announced charges against Chinese government intelligence officers Zha Rong and Chai Meng, among others, for conspiring to steal intellectual property, confidential business information, and technological data from companies in the U.S. and European commercial aviation industry. […]

Department of Homeland Security DHS

The Department of Homeland Security on Oct. 30 announced launch of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, which the agency said is charged with developing “consensus recommendations” to identify and manage risk to the global ICT supply chain. […]

elections, election security, voting

The Defense Department is lending assistance to the Department of Homeland Security as DHS works to protect election infrastructure in the run-up to next week’s mid-term congressional elections, said Ed Wilson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy, on Tuesday at the Symantec 2018 Government Symposium. […]

NIST

The Commerce Department will soon be releasing a draft “road map” on Internet of Things (IoT) security issues, an official with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)–which is part of the Commerce Department–indicated Tuesday during a panel discussion at the 2018 Symantec Government Symposium. […]

jeanette manfra dhs nppd oc&c assistant secretary

Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, said today that the new update to Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) guidance will place even more accountability on department leaders and reflects an evolution in discussions between agencies and DHS. […]

Margaret Weichert, acting director at the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM), addressed the challenges ahead for the Federal workforce and emphasized the need for action in the near future, but promised that OPM would continue its current path after a series of leadership changes. […]

net neutrality-min

California has agreed to delay enforcing its net neutrality law, signed in September, that put the state at odds with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and many telecommunications industry groups. The law reinstates Obama-era net neutrality rules and was scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2019. […]

FTC Federal Trade Commission

Following a report released Tuesday that detailed how tech companies have provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with biometric and surveillance technology, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called for a “moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology for immigration enforcement and law enforcement purposes until Congress and the public debate what, if any, uses of this technology should be permitted.” […]

DOJ Department of Justice

Department of Justice Chief Technology Officer Ron Bewtra stressed the need for modernization and human-centered design to help Federal IT adjust to disruptive technologies while better serving agency missions and those who depend on them. […]

Net Neutrality
DOE Department of Energy Building

The Department of Energy Office of Inspector General released a report on Oct. 19 that found several weaknesses in the cybersecurity program at DoE in fiscal year 2018, including recurring issues in vulnerability management, patching, and formal cybersecurity training policies. […]

Cyber workforce people

The answer to that question is “yes,” according to a white paper released today by New America, a non-partisan think tank. The white paper argues that while the United States has been engaged in cybersecurity for more than a generation, there are still “organizational and human gaps” that leave the country insecure. […]

DHS Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shared details on its Cyber Risk Economics Capability Gaps Research Strategy, which is part of its Cyber Risk Economics (CYRIE) program, in a blog post on Tuesday. […]

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

The General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General said in a report issued Oct. 19 that it wants GSA’s IT Office (GSA IT) to provide a revised corrective action plan to improve the agency’s policies for responding to breaches of personally identifiable information (PII). […]

HealthCare.gov CMS

The Department of Health and Human Service’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported a data breach of its HealthCare.gov site, with the attacker accessing the files of about 75,000 people, the agency said in a statement released Friday. […]

Census 2020

Technology initiatives helped improve response rates for citizens and productivity for Census Bureau employees during the agency’s 2018 End-to-End Census Test, the Bureau reported during its quarterly program management review. […]

Max Everett DoE CIO Department of Energy chief information officer

Department of Energy (DoE) CIO Max Everett said the agency’s Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) project is helping to align the activities of DoE’s wide range of labs and offices, and that the TMF process has helped DoE learn to prioritize all of its future IT projects around cost efficiency and business case. […]

elections, election security, voting

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, alongside the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Homeland Security, released a joint statement today that expresses their concern over election interference and calls identification and prevention of interference a “top priority for the Federal government.” […]

Net Neutrality

Five telecommunication industry groups–American Cable Association; CTIA – The Wireless Association; NCTA – The Internet & Television Association; USTelecom – The Broadband Association and the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association–filed suit against the state of Vermont on Thursday over the state’s net neutrality law. The law in question seeks to prevent companies that do not abide by the state’s net neutrality rules from receiving state contracts. […]

Ajit Pai, FCC Commisioner

On Tuesday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced an investigation into how wireless services providers responded to Hurricane Michael, which devastated the Florida Panhandle and surrounding areas–along with service provider infrastructure–last week. […]

big data
FCC

The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University released a new study yesterday examining the 24 million comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding net neutrality between April and August of 2017. […]

Department of Homeland Security DHS

Two Federal government officials speaking today at an event organized by the Consortium for IT Software Quality expressed concern about what they see as an increasingly high turnover rate in recent years among Federal agency chief information officers and chief information security officers. […]

Emily Murphy, administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), delivered a keynote address today that provided a glimpse of her vision as the head of GSA, along with recent government IT wins and the path she sees ahead for the agency serving as the Federal facilitator for IT acquisition and modernization. […]

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