Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly stressed the importance of working together to combat cyber warriors at his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Homeland Security. Kelly said that incumbent Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was “on to something” when he reached out to Silicon Valley companies for best cybersecurity practices. […]

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. (Photo: INSA)

In a hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Director Of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the unclassified version of the executive-mandated report on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election is scheduled to be released early next week and will “push the envelope” to provide the public with as much information as possible. […]

In less than a month, the 115th Congress will begin legislative business, giving congressional freshmen the first opportunity to exercise their new positions. Among those freshmen are industry members, former government employees, and nonprofit founders whose technology backgrounds make them the new faces to watch for IT legislation in the coming years. […]

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday, calling for a Select Committee on Cybersecurity that would be able to cross the jurisdictional lines of more than 80 committees and subcommittees in order to “investigate pressing cybersecurity matters.” […]

A lack of clear technology policy established during Donald’s Trump’s campaigning and preparations as president-elect is making it difficult to determine what the future of tech policy is going to look like, according to experts speaking at an Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) panel on Thursday. […]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opened a news conference on Monday saying that recent allegations of Russia’s interference in the presidential election as well as the White House’s announcement of additional election cybersecurity investigations should be treated in a bipartisan manner. […]

An effort to block or delay changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure failed to pass the Senate floor, causing the changes to the rule to go into effect on Dec. 1. The changes will allow law enforcement to obtain warrants to search computers in an unknown location and to search any device that the hacker has broken into, potentially granting access to multiple privately owned computers with one warrant. […]

Russia hack

The U.S. Border Patrol apprehends 1 percent to 2 percent of the drugs smugglers move across the Mexican border into the United States, said Deputy Chief Carla Provost. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., thinks drones could help Border Patrol monitor the flow of these substances. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., spearheaded a letter signed by 15 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to request that the committee hold a hearing on the attempts by foreign powers to influence the U.S. presidential election. […]

In determining whether agency CIOs have learned their lesson after the 2015 OPM data breach, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, commended NASA CIO Renee Wynn on her “unprecedented” move to refuse an end-user service provider the authority to operate due to a lack of knowledge about the potential risks of that service. […]

AR

In the “Wild West” of augmented reality applications, the U.S. government has to balance the concerns of helping to protect consumer privacy and security while also leaving room for companies to freely innovate, according to witnesses at a Senate Energy and Commerce hearing. […]

census

In light of the recent distributed denial of service attack that prevented access to multiple U.S. websites as well as the increasing cybersecurity threat posed by Internet of Things devices, the Federal government “needs a new agency” to deal with cybersecurity, according to Bruce Schneier of Harvard University. […]

The Government Accountability Office launched Priorities for Policy Makers, a mobile app that allows people to monitor the presidential and congressional transitions. […]

In the wake of recent Dyn attacks that temporarily shut down major websites such as Twitter, Amazon, and PayPal, Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., sent a letter to President Obama this week to request a strengthening of the U.S. ability to detect and respond to major vulnerabilities. […]

Yahoo last year produced a software program that would search customer emails for information specified by U.S. intelligence officials, according to a report by Reuters. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., condemned such actions, calling them “Big Brother on steroids.” […]

A group of U.S. senators wrote a letter to Marissa Mayer, chief executive officer of Yahoo, on Tuesday about the hack on 500 million accounts in 2014. They ask what went wrong and how Yahoo plans to protect consumer data in the future. […]

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