As public and private sector organizations face a heightened threat landscape amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Richard Driggers, deputy assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), explained how agency efforts have scaled to meet governmentwide cyber needs. […]
After a two-and-a-half-year tenure widely recognized for success in promoting Federal IT modernization – and superb performance in shepherding the government’s quick turn to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic – Federal CIO Suzette Kent said today she will step down from her post next month. […]
NSF’s CIO Dorothy Aronson said moving forward, lessons learned from the pandemic “can’t be unlearned.” “We probably will continue to be much more of a virtual organization in the future than we had been in the past,” she said. […]
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is tasked with protecting U.S. national security and protecting the nation’s borders. When it comes to the technology infrastructure needed to meet mission goals, Sonny Bhagowalia, deputy assistant commissioner with CBP’s Office of Information Technology, has turned to supported open-source technologies. […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Small Business Association (SBA) aimed warnings this week at six companies to cease potentially misleading marketing geared toward small businesses seeking COVID-19 relief loans. […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to affect organizations across the United States, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) warned of common trends and attack vectors that are being used by malicious actors for financial or informational gain. […]
The Federal Communications Commission said today that the total value of funding grants under its COVID-19 Telehealth Program rose to $157 million, after the agency approved $29.4 million of new grants. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) increased the ceiling of the 8(a) Streamlined Technology Application Resource for Services (STARS) II contract to $22 billion today. […]
While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has left a flurry of cybersecurity risks in its wake targeting healthcare and other sectors, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has scarcely missed a beat in carrying out its mission to protect the U.S. from cyber threats. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs called the COVID-19 pandemic – and the quick switch to telework stemming from efforts to curtail the spread of the virus – one of the “biggest drivers” of IT and cyber modernization in recent times. […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Identifying Outputs of Generative Adversarial Networks (IOGAN) Act (S.2904) would cost $6 million between 2020 and 2025. […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic made it increasingly difficult for veterans to access in-person healthcare services, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) quickly scaled its existing telehealth capabilities to accommodate more patients. Now, per several VA officials, the agency is planning to continue investments in and accessibility to its virtual health services even after the pandemic winds down. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has updated its Insider Threat Program (ITP) to expand the program’s scope to include those with past or current access to DHS facilities, information, equipment, networks, or systems. […]
At the Department of Education, workforce training and collaboration with other Federal agencies and academic stakeholders are helping the agency stay cybersecure, according to CIO Jason Gray. […]
The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is hosting a site dedicated to compiling election security resource amid the COVID-19 pandemic with help from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) is seeking information to stand up a Common Operating Platform (COP) within its Office of Mission Assurance (OMA), which responds to emergencies and crises. […]
NASA is taking a “risk-based, phased, and methodical” approach to reopening its offices, with the health and safety of its workforce and continuing telework as top priorities, according to the agency’s framework for returning to on-site work. […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has delivered two congressionally-requested reports on the agency’s consumer privacy work as part of the fiscal year 2020 spending bill that funds FTC and other agencies. The first report details the way FTC uses its authorities to protect consumer privacy and security and to “deter unfair and deceptive conduct.” The […]
In the past three months, Federal IT has emerged as the indispensable lifeline for delivery of government services to citizens in times of turmoil. As the nation finds its new footing on the road to recovery, MeriTalk is chronicling the untold stories of how Federal IT is paving the way. In the latest chapter of CIO Crossroads, we examine the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). […]
The Senate voted by voice yesterday to confirm academic Sethuraman Panchanathan to be the next director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). […]
The unique ability of government IT operations to ensure the delivery of vital services to citizens has formed the backbone of the larger Federal pandemic response. MeriTalk is chronicling the untold stories of that effort in our CIO Crossroads series. Please join us for our latest chapter: Department of Transportation. […]
“One of the things that we are trying to do with our indictments, and that we’ve been trying to do for a number of years, is to establish norms of nation-state behavior in cyberspace,” said John Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice. […]
In selecting which exempt organization returns to examine, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) should start using data and document the measurable objectives in using it to reduce errors and incomplete procedures. […]
The Department of Commerce announced a rule to allow American companies to participate in international standards setting bodies, an area previously vacated by the United States to discourage commercial cooperation with the Chinese company Huawei. […]
Cost-of-Living-Adjustments (COLAs) from Federal retirement programs, such as Social Security are based on consumer price indexes (CPI) produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), however, the agency hasn’t evaluated whether its data accurately reflects what certain groups pay, purchase, and shop. […]
While the mass shift to telework amid the COVID-19 pandemic caught some organizations off-guard, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) had already practiced with a full telework workforce just weeks before the maximize telework order came. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) 1.0.0 Milestone 3, a key step toward finalizing the full initial release of OSCAL v1. […]
It’s hard to fathom the number of critical government processes that have had to evolve – very quickly – to meet the needs of the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic. And if this crisis has a silver lining, it’s the accelerated modernization and innovation being born out of it. MeriTalk is surfacing the untold stories – and lessons – of those efforts. In the latest installment of CIO Crossroads, we turn to the General Services Administration (GSA). […]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai asked members of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee for $65 million to implement the Broadband DATA Act, a law signed in March to improve the accuracy of broadband deployment maps. […]
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking information to establish a Customer Identity Credential and Access Management (ICAM) Solution to authenticate external users. […]