There are wide discrepancies in satisfaction among Federal employees at various agencies, and Congress wants to know why. “We don’t have a culture of performance recognition in government,” Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Hearing.
Consumers comprehensively think that more needs to be done to protect their data, according to a study published by Purple Insights on behalf of ACT the App Association. But do they trust government or tech companies more? […]
Dave Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office, profiled the upcoming agency scorecard on FITARA and discussed the Federal government’s continuing difficulties with data center consolidation and legacy IT modernization.
Internal Revenue Service cybersecurity is woefully inadequate, and Congress is to blame, according to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “Congress has sat back and watched while criminals have come in and preyed on taxpayers,” Wyden said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
The General Services Administration is pushing Congress to get behind a plan to establish a third service branch, known as the Technology Transformation Service, that would be centered around GSA’s 18F digital service organization and would actively help manage the $3.1 billion IT modernization fund proposed by the White House, MeriTalk has learned.
Cyber Command’s influence may not be as expansive as some think, according to its commander, Adm. Michael Rogers. “The Department of Defense is not resourced, nor is it tasked with defending every single computer structure in the U.S.,” he said.
The Agriculture Department’s Flip Anderson is the only known agency-level FITARA director–an indicator of both the level of importance USDA has assigned to the new law and the resources necessary to manage the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act compliance correctly.
For FITARA to reach its full potential, Federal agencies must dissect the real problems and attract stronger CIOs, Dave Powner, Director of IT Issues at the Government Accountability Office, told MeriTalk’s FITARA Forum in Washington, D.C.
The Federal government is looking for ways to put the hammer down on health care data blockers and data hackers. As voluntary compliance isn’t working, Karen DeSalvo, National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, told a congressional hearing that she has called for funding to “put some teeth around” going after data blockers. […]
Skilled workforce retention is a major problem for the Department of Defense’s IT issues, according to DOD CIO Terry Halvorsen, and salaries are partly to blame.
The fledgling cyber insurance industry may hold the key to improving cybersecurity practices across the nation, according to a panel of experts who testified Tuesday before a House subcommittee. “The expansion of cyber risks and the growth of the cyber insurance market are a tremendous opportunity for the insurance sector to lead in the development […]
Increasing Internet access will be a key component to boosting Cuban businesses, according to President Obama. In remarks made alongside Cuban President Raul Castro as well as a separate forum on Cuban entrepreneurship, the President emphasized the Internet’s role in improving and expanding the country’s ability to innovate. “In the 21st century, countries cannot be successful […]
Federal agencies remain woefully behind on cybersecurity, according to the annual cybersecurity compliance report released Friday by the Office of Management and Budget. During the 2015 fiscal year, Federal agencies reported 77,183 cybersecurity incidents, a 10% increase over the incidents reported in 2014. Though the administration believes this increase may be attributed to improved detection […]
HealthCare.gov had a rocky rollout, but future Federal tech projects could learn a lot from its trials and successes, according to Erin Bliss at the HHS Office of Inspector General. She testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee alongside Seto Bagdoyan, the director of forensic audits at GAO.
Self-driving car manufacturers are moving forward too quickly, according to Missy Cummings, the director of Duke University’s Humans and Autonomy Laboratory. She testified alongside four representatives from the motor vehicle industry at the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told a Senate committee that the agency plans to use the final months of the Obama administration and the fiscal 2017 budget request to kick-start and expand a new operational focus on data and cybersecurity.
A representative of a Federal cloud computing industry advisory group filed a formal complaint this week with the General Services Administration’s inspector general alleging officials from FedRAMP issued veiled threats of retaliation against member companies that publicly voiced concerns about problems with the cloud security certification process.
FBI Director James Comey endured tough questioning by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on whether the FBI had pursued every alternative to accessing the San Bernardino shooter’s phone before going to Apple, which has challenged a Federal court order that would force the company to unlock the phone.
In a national security hearing on worldwide threats, FBI Director James Comey defended the FBI’s demands that Apple provide access to the phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.
President Obama appointed two industry leaders to head his Cybersecurity National Action Plan. Tom Donilon, former National Security Adviser, will serve as the chairman of the committee and Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM, will serve as the vice chairman.
The FDA’s new cybersecurity guidelines may not be enough to keep medical devices safe, according to two Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology authors.
Alongside the release of the proposed 2017 budget, the White House released its annual Analytical Perspectives of that proposal. MeriTalk spotted five important trends in the IT world and describes how the Federal government plans to address them.
Encryption was a hot issue this week. FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee about the struggle of both counter-terrorism and law enforcement efforts in accessing information on encrypted devices, such as cellphones. And Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, introduced the ENCRYPT Act as a means of combating the push for decryption.
President Obama unveiled plans for addressing Federal cybersecurity issues, including a 35% increase in the cybersecurity budget. But Tom Kellermann, Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Trend Micro, worries that the plan is “completely insufficient” to address the cybersecurity needs of the nation.
The White House is threatening to veto HR 1675 if it passes the Senate, after the House of Representatives passed the Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act that would not require most U.S. companies to file machine-readable financial statements.
Members of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee questioned why Danny Harris, the department’s chief information officer since 2008, was pursuing outside work while the agency has repeatedly received low cybersecurity grades from auditors.
In a new report, the Government Accountability Office said some of the definitions provided to Federal agencies for reporting spending data under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 are inadequate, and “could lead to inconsistent reporting.”
A new report by the Congressional Research Service found flaws in keeping track of the size of Federal agencies, and noted that the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security are having trouble recruiting and training cybersecurity professionals.
The Veterans Benefits Administration is falling short in the way it is managing the progress of its Veteran’s Benefits Management System (VBMS), a system that was responsible for processing $63 billion in claims in 2014, Valerie Melvin, director of information technology at the Government Accountability Office, told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., are planning to introduce the Cloud Infrastructure Transition Act, which is aimed at accelerating cloud adoption throughout the Federal government. Known as the Cloud IT Act, it is focused on reforming the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which has come under fire on several fronts.