The National Institute of Standards and Technology released Special Publication 800-137A, guidance on how to assess Information Security Continuous Monitoring (ISCM) programs for commercial entities as well as Federal, state, and local government organizations. […]
Federal agencies and departments have spent more than $13 billion on COVID-19 related contracts since February – including an additional $3 billion in just the past nine days. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is considering a new approach to the Strategic National Stockpile, a “supply chain IT control tower” that would allow officials a full, comprehensive view of emergency supplies. […]
In a letter to the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., called for the expansion of drone use to facilitate contact-free delivery of medical supplies and other needed equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
Nick Ward, Chief Information Security Officer at the Department of Justice (DoJ), said the agency is proceeding “full steam ahead” on efforts to explore adoption of zero trust security models, with the more distributed nature of DoJ’s workforce in the coronavirus pandemic providing impetus to that effort. […]
The Spectrum IT Modernization Act, which advanced on a voice vote out of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on May 20, takes aim at revamping the way the Federal government manages the airwaves. […]
Apple and Google are launching the Exposure Notification application programming interface (API) that will enable apps created by public health agencies to work more effectively in contact tracing of COVID-19. […]
A Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) national recruiter exposed sensitive information including locations, phone numbers, and emails of more than 1,300 American University students following a virtual job fair on May 15. […]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Federal IT operations are providing a resilient fabric that enables accelerated delivery of vital services to citizens during an unprecedented public health crisis. As government IT operations reach their new steady-state and map the path to further modernization, MeriTalk is surfacing the untold stories – and lessons – of those efforts. In the latest installment of CIO Crossroads, we examine the Labor Department’s performance eight weeks into the fray. […]
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, agencies like the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have made the telework transition much easier for their personnel because of cloud-based systems. […]
The National Institutes of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is asking industry to demonstrate products and technical expertise to support its project entitled, 5G Cybersecurity: Preparing a Secure Evolution. […]
Consolidating Federal data centers through adoption of cloud and shared services has the “greatest potential” for streamlining the use of Federal resources, according to Thomas Santucci, director of the Data Center and Cloud Optimization Infrastructure Program Management Office at the General Services Administration (GSA). […]
The CIOs of the Agriculture (USDA) and Transportation (DoT) Departments said today that workforce productivity trends have been stable or improved since both agencies turned to large-scale telework in March to combat spread of COVID-19. […]
In a project between ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Group and the Acquisition Community of Interest (COI) important takeaways were found for improving training, implementing modern techniques, and integrating appropriate tools for improving the Federal acquisition process. […]
The final version of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-207 on zero trust could be released as soon as this month, with an opportunity for industry collaboration coming this fall, a NIST official confirmed today. […]
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was joined by a bipartisan group of senators to introduce legislation that would expedite staffing for the special pandemic recovery watchdog that oversees trillions in taxpayer funded pandemic relief. […]
According to a request for information (RFI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seeking to modernize its grants management system with an end-to-end automated solution. […]
The Department of Commerce (DoC) has amended an existing rule in order to prevent China-based network equipment maker Huawei from using U.S. technologies to design and manufacture semiconductors. […]
During the COVID-19 crisis, Federal agencies are vulnerable to more cyberattacks and data breaches than ever before, but agencies like the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) are working hard to address the cybersecurity challenges. […]
On the same day that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint warning to COVID-19 research organizations about China’s cyber threat, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission got its hearing in the Senate. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced May 14 that 774 broadband and telephone providers have agreed to extend the Keep Americans Connected Pledge through June 30 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. […]
The government’s Federal Data Strategy team extended some of the target dates for its 2020 action plan, and is making sure that COVID-19 response data is of the highest priority in the Federal Data Strategy’s call for agencies to prioritize data assets and projects. […]
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, just 40 percent of Federal and only 4 percent of State and Local government employees were authorized to telework. But since then, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is mandating that Federal agencies maximize telework across the nation, and many SLGs are doing the same. Embracing telework – and doing it right – is a government-wide priority. […]
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released its Insider Threat Roadmap on May 14, with details on how the agency plans to use emerging tech and advanced analytics to mitigate risks. […]
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has been taking the current remote-standard in stride as it has enough capacity in its cloud-based systems for personnel teleworking. […]
In a move to strengthen the United States’ cybersecurity posture, Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., introduced the Cybersecurity Competitions to Yield Better Efforts to Research the Latest Exceptionally Advanced Problems (CYBER LEAP) Act of 2020. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate released a predictive modeling tool to estimate the natural decay of SARS-CoV-2 – which causes COVID-19 – under a range of temperatures and humidity levels. […]
Often taken for granted in the eight weeks since the coronavirus pandemic struck is one simple but vital truth: the linchpin holding together the Federal government’s ability to provide crucial services is the technology that ties the enterprise together. Federal IT has literally brought us together – as a government, and as a nation. As government IT operations achieve steady-state and look to the next chapter of digital modernization, MeriTalk is chronicling the untold stories – and lessons – of that effort. Today we check in with the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS) operation. […]
A cyber intrusion that occurred at the U.S. Marshals Service in December 2019 exposed 387,000 individuals’ names, addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers to attackers, an agency spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk yesterday. […]
In a two-week period during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the Small Business Administration (SBA) processed more total loans than it had in 14 years, according to Melvin Brown II, director of the Enterprise Business Management Office within the agency’s CIO Office. At the May 13 FCW Workshop on Data and Analytics, Brown shared the data management tips that helped the agency succeed. […]