Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
border

As the partial Federal government shutdown continues with little sign of compromise over President Trump’s demand for border wall funding, the idea of employing more technology to create better border security has crept into greater prominence in discussions of the issue. […]

IRS
Veterans Affairs VA Vets

Today is James Gfrerer’s first day as assistant secretary for the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs. […]

General Services Administration GSA

Justin “Doc” Herman is leaving the General Services Administration (GSA) to become head of public sector for Twilio. […]

Veterans Affairs VA Vets

On Thursday, President Trump signed the Forever GI Bill Housing Payment Fulfillment Act into law, speeding up IT modernization efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). […]

.gov website cybersecurity government

Cybersecurity experts are growing concerned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hasn’t indicated which critical cybersecurity capabilities the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has ceased during the on-going partial government shutdown. […]

Kelly Olson, GSA

Four months after taking the helm as acting director of GSA TTS–the agency’s innovation hub–Kelly Olson today announced plans to leave the agency. […]

elections, election security, voting

The Senate voted to confirm Benjamin Hovland and Donald Palmer as commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), allowing the commission to hold a quorum for the first time since March. […]

VA

The Senate confirmed James Gfrerer as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs Wednesday evening on a voice vote, filling the permanent CIO role that had been vacant since the start of the Trump administration. […]

Ajit Pai, FCC Commisioner

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced Friday that FCC will investigate last week’s nationwide CenturyLink outage, which impacted 911 service across the country. The outage, which primarily impacted Western states, began shortly after 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 27 and was resolved by 9 p.m. ET on Dec. 28. […]

State Department

The State Department is looking to secure its mobile devices and protect against malicious apps–with an app. The department released a request for information on Dec. 20, asking vendors for information about an endpoint protection platform for mobile devices. Responses are due by Jan. 18. […]

FCC

A day after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filled its board of commissioners for the first time since April 2018 by confirming Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks to full five-year terms, the FCC shuttered most of their operations on Thursday amid the partial government shutdown. […]

Labor

The Department of Labor on Dec. 27 released a request for information on a proposal for a new financial management system, with an eye towards a potential move to the cloud and data analytics capabilities. Responses are due by 11 AM on January 16. […]

IRS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said last month it established a new program called Pilot IRS that will look to investigate and acquire emerging technologies that will help the agency better serve taxpayers. […]

NSF

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that NSF could improve its mobile device security after finding devices that were not enrolled in the agency’s management program, and finding inappropriate apps on work devices. The agency agreed with those recommendations. […]

DHS Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) newly-minted cybersecurity component agency, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have furloughed substantial chunks of their workforce as a result of the continuing partial Federal government shutdown, according to planning documents issued last month. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week released its Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices, a set of voluntary cybersecurity guidelines for the private sector that leverages the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to address cybersecurity issues across healthcare organizations of all sizes. […]

Department of Homeland Security DHS

The Department of Homeland Security announced last month that it will offer $800,000 in grants to startups and small businesses for blockchain counterfeiting solutions through its Science and Technology Directorate’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program. […]

Natural disaster flood min
AI Cyber World machine learning-min
CDC
Washington DC capitol federal government-min

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., today wrote Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and called for her to “take urgent action to protect America’s pipelines from cyber attack.” The letter follows a report released today from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which detailed issues American pipelines face defending against cyber attacks. […]

Veterans Affairs VA Vets
data sharing

An audit of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to ensure adequate compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) shows a need for improvement in IT security. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) today announced hacking and identity theft charges against two members of the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group APT-10, alleging that the APT-10 members hacked into American organizations and stole personally identifiable information on more than 100,000 Navy personnel. […]

Russia hacking hack cyber-min
FBI

The Department of Justice (DoJ), citing the increased number of cybercrimes being tackled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has doubled its broad goal of FBI actions to combat cyberattacks in FY 2019, although FY 2018 statistics indicate that the FBI could end up handling a much heavier workload than that.   […]

Department of Homeland Security DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it plans to not recompete the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions (EAGLE) II contract, and instead pursue a “suite of contract vehicles,” according to a Dec. 17 press release. […]

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