FCC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on a final order Feb. 28 to auction mid-band spectrum for use by providers of 5G wireless services, but the vote spurred some criticism from members of both parties in Congress.  The auction is set for December 2020. […]

electric grid

MetTel, formerly known as the Manhattan Telecommunications Corporation, won a $253.5 million enterprise infrastructure solutions (EIS) task order with the Social Security Administration (SSA) Feb. 4 for telecommunications services. […]

FCC, Chinese suppliers
DHS

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (DHS) wants solicitations from start-ups that can develop technology to track objects underwater as a part of its Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), according to a Feb. 27 announcement.  […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is seeking proposals from United States universities interested in establishing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in security technology. […]

Veterans Affairs VA Vets

After facing IT challenges with the implementation of the Forever GI Bill, Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Robert Wilkie said during a Budget Request hearing for Fiscal Year 2021 that the department needed to look at its entire IT infrastructure’s readiness. […]

The House Appropriations Committee questioned today why the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is requesting $2.6 billion in funds for Fiscal Year 2021 for the VA’s Office of Electronic Health Records (EHR)— $1 billion more than the FY2020 request— when the EHR Modernization go-live date was delayed and wants better communication on information from the agency to avoid delays and cost more money. […]

When it comes to adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities, it’s important to look at its range of effects from many different viewpoints. […]

Congressional staffers on House and Senate committees with strong interest in cybersecurity issues said today they are watching for “low-hanging fruit” in the form of easy-to-enact legislative proposals expected to make up some of the recommendations in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) report set to be released on March 11. […]

electric grid

In a report released Feb. 25, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that “most” of nine agencies tasked with protecting the 16 critical infrastructure sectors “have not developed methods to determine the level and type of adoption of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” […]

Health and Human Services HHS

Leaders from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shared how the agency’s acquisition process fueled successful IT transformation in projects like Accelerate at the Feb. 26 ServiceNow Federal Forum. […]

military healthcare, veterans healthcare

The Offices of Inspectors General (OIG) for the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) are planning to begin a joint audit to determine what actions taken by the DoD and VA in acquiring and implementing a common, commercial electronic health record system. […]

A senior official speaking Feb. 26 at the RSA Conference clarified recent steps by the State Department to publicly attribute and condemn acts of cyber aggression on the part of Russia, calling the actions of the Department part of a deliberate attempt to establish a framework for appropriate nation-state behavior in cyberspace. […]

Cybersecurity

Federal officials from the Defense Department (DoD), Justice Department (DoJ), and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Feb. 25 totaled up the sobering costs of intellectual property theft from U.S. interests in recent years, and pointed to strategies their agencies are pursuing to put a dent into that total going forward. […]

Cybersecurity
election security

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs pledged today that there is no issue drawing more focus and attention at the Federal government level than election security leading up to the 2020 elections later this year. […]

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will hold its next Technological Advisory Council (TAC) meeting on March 24 at the FCC headquarters. […]

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the Cybersecurity Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2020 (H.R. 5680) could slightly lower the deficit, but not by a significant amount. The bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. on Jan. 27, would authorize the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue administrative subpoenas in rare […]

Sean Plankey, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity, Energy, Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) at the Department of Energy (DoE), today outlined solutions to cybersecurity skills gaps in the industrial controls sector as security for that sector continues to change from older “manual-mode” methods to more modern technologies. […]

Since 2014, the beginning of CIO Joseph Klimavicz’s tenure, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has achieved $600 million in IT cost avoidance, reduced cyber risk by 70 percent, and streamlined its 23 email systems into one cloud-based solution. […]

Oki Mek, senior adviser to the CIO at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on Feb. 20 discussed the agency’s current effort to draft a cloud strategy, and the importance of going forward with a unified strategy that guides the entire organization. […]

Cloud Computing Brainstorm 2019 - Sean Connelly

Sean Connelly, Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) program manager at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said this week his office expects to issue finalized documents sometime this spring for version 3.0 of the TIC initiative. The agency issued draft guidance documents for TIC 3.0 late last year. […]

A senior General Services Administration (GSA) official said today the agency is supportive of the primary aims of a new report recommending steps to modernize the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. […]

ServiceNow Federal Forum

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on deepfakes, a technology which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and can depict someone appearing to say or do something they never did. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) IT Reform Act of 2019 passed the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Feb. 13, paving the way for its move to the Senate floor. […]

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