Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced the Hack Your State Department Act on June 12. […]

A bipartisan group of Federal legislators wrote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on May 20 urging “greater scrutiny and regulation of private companies providing highly advanced surveillance capabilities to governments with troubling human rights records.”

One of the biggest hurdles to Federal agency adoption of Technology Business Management (TBM) practices may be the degree of cultural change necessary to get everyone – including IT, finance, and top leadership – on board for the effort, said Ken Rogers, deputy CIO at the State Department, on Wednesday, May 15, at the Apptio Federal TBM Summit.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that a cyberattack could, “in certain circumstances, constitute an armed attack under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty,” and that the United States would defend Japan in that circumstance.

Over the past year Karen Wrege, CIO, Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, (DDTC) led a major “cloud first” IT modernization effort to improve efficiency and security for DDTC employees and external customers.

The State Department now has its first permanent CIO in more than a year. Stuart McGuigan was announced on Tuesday as the new CIO and head of the agency’s Bureau of Information Resource Management. 

The Cyber Diplomacy Act, H.R. 739, was scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday and the CBO found it would not have a material impact on government spending.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee marked up the Cyber Diplomacy Act yesterday, signaling the overall approval of the legislation by the committee.

The State Department is in the planning phase to create a cyber bureau within the department, a State Department official noted during a panel Q&A session on Thursday.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would not be able to partner or share information with countries that adopt Huawei technology.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Dan Sullivan, R-Ark., reintroduced legislation on Tuesday that would “establish an international information sharing program on election administration and security at the State Department.” The Global Electoral Exchange Act, which had been introduced in the last Congress, would enable the United States to work with its international allies to strengthen election security by sharing best practices on audits, disinformation campaigns, and voter database protections–among other pertinent issues.

The chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs have introduced H.R. 739, the Cyber Diplomacy Act of 2019, which would establish an Ambassador for Cyberspace in the State Department.

By a vote of 377-3, the House passed the Hack Your State Department Act late Tuesday evening.

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.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on Wednesday it took a series of actions against Russian operatives for election interference and other malicious cyber activities.

The State Department is looking to purchase phone hacking tools for Ghanaian police to help them investigate international crime.

The State Department is standing up a cloud program office and taking the opportunity to modernize both systems across the department, according to Brian Merrick, deputy director of cloud program management at the State Department.

Following the fifth EU-U.S. Cyber Dialogue last month in Brussels, the United States and the European Union today released a statement reaffirming their “strong partnership in favour of a global, open, stable and secure cyberspace where the rule of law fully applies, where the same rights that individuals have offline are protected online, and where the security, economic growth, prosperity, and integrity of free and democratic societies is promoted and preserved.”

The State Department confirmed that its unclassified email system was breached, putting some employees’ personally identifiable information at risk.

A bipartisan group of senators wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday questioning the State Department on what they called its failure to meet Federal cybersecurity standards, including a “near total absence of multifactor authentication (MFA).”