With the release of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission report, there has been much discussion about the future of cyber policy. A key component of the Trump administration’s current cyber policy, however, has been obscured from Congress for months, until recently. […]
The Defense Department (DoD) announced late Monday the appointment of William Lietzau as Director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) that oversees nearly all security clearance processes for the Federal government. […]
The Federal government and other entities are adjusting to and planning for the impact of the spreading COVID-19 coronavirus. […]
Following reports of a possible cyberattack late Sunday night, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and at the Department of Defense (DoD) prep Federal networks for an uptick in cyberthreats as employees move to telework to fight the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) released the final version of its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) in January 2020, but without certification processes in place, third-party entities are offering fraudulent CMMCs to contractors interested in working with the department. […]
It was a fast-moving weekend for the Federal government and its evolving responses to, and planning for, impact of the spreading COVID-19 coronavirus. Here’s a quick look at some of the top developments of interest to the Federal IT community: […]
The COVID-19 outbreak has created a flood of information to sift through for the Federal workforce. MeriTalk will attempt to collect and disseminate information as clearly as possible regarding the Federal workforce and IT policies as they relate to the Coronavirus. […]
“We didn’t think that we needed to invent a new agency when we got one [CISA] that’s working,” said Solarium co-chair, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, “But we did think that there was something missing and that was leadership from the top.” […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has a renewed focus on modernizing its hiring process and investing in cyber education to improve recruitment and retention stats as it looks ahead at its Fiscal Year 2021 budget. […]
Sen. Mark Warner sent a letter to the acting director of national intelligence (DNI) and the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to issue clear guidance ensuring that security clearances will not be jeopardized due to financial impacts of COVID-19. […]
Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., said today they introduced legislation that would ban the use of the TikTok app on Federal government-provided devices out of concern that the company providing the service – ByteDance – has close ties to the Chinese government and could be compelled to share user data with the government. […]
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s long-awaited report on how the U.S. can better defend itself against cyber threats focuses on a handful of major themes: […]
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission that is set to release recommendations March 11 on how to better defend the U.S. against cyber threats, said today the commission hopes to spark quick action by Congress on at least some of those recommendations. […]
U.S. Cyber Command’s Fusion Cell component determined that adversaries would change their tactics based on secret U.S. intelligence information disclosed by former Army analyst Bradley Manning via WikiLeaks in 2010, a recently released document shows. […]
The Defense Innovation Board (DIB), a Federal advisory committee, is urging the Department of Defense (DoD) to appoint a Digital People Officer. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report that the Defense Department (DoD) needs to do a better job managing some aspects of a pilot project with Federally-funded research and development centers (FFRDC) sponsored by DoD that aims to streamline those centers access to sensitive data. […]
General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on March 4 to the U.S. Navy’s award last month of the latest version of its Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) contract that is worth up to $7.7 billion. […]
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said March 5 that he and U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace will “work together to further reduce” the role of equipment and services provided by China-based Huawei in U.K. 5G communications infrastructure. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) today announced that their Center of Excellence (CoE) effort has achieved new milestones in leveraging data as a strategic asset while advancing AI tech across DoD. […]
While a House Veterans Affairs’ panel investigated the cause of delayed rollout of electronic health records (EHR) at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee investigated a similar question during a hearing on the Defense Health Program. […]
As of November 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) has failed to implement two-thirds of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) prior 12 recommendations to improve the agency’s business IT management and meet U.S. Code requirements. […]
There are many challenges facing defense agencies when it comes to modernizing technologies and establishing an environment for industry and government to effectively communicate is essential to this process. […]
As the U.S. prepares for the 2020 presidential primary’s “Super Tuesday,” officials from the nation’s defense agencies are trying to quell election security concerns. […]
President Trump on Feb. 28 named Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, as his nominee for Director of National Intelligence, a job that has been vacant since Dan Coats resigned last August. […]
Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly shared “one of [his] greatest’s lessons in business” in a recent message to the department. He wrote that the quality of a company’s employee bathroom was a “nearly foolproof indicator” of a good organization. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center (JAIC) selected Alka Patel, a pull from the private sector with “diverse skills and experience” to help lead its ethical AI adoption, per JAIC spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson on Feb. 28. […]
In a Feb. 26 letter to Dana Deasy, CIO of the Department of Defense (DoD), Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., stressed the importance of vulnerability disclosure programs. […]
Jim Sullivan, defense intelligence officer (DIO) for cyber at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), emphasized the value of offensive operations in cyberspace to deter nation-state attackers during a panel discussion this week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. […]
Katie Arrington, the Defense Department’s (DoD) Chief Information Security Officer for Acquisition and a driving force behind the Pentagon’s recently released Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, voiced a vigorous defense on Feb. 26 of U.S. law and policy that bans the Federal government and its contractors from doing business with China-based network equipment maker Huawei. […]
Both the growing ability to project offensive cyber power, and a long list of old friends around the world, are helping the Federal government to develop a greater ability to create more effective deterrence against cyber adversaries, a senior Defense Department (DoD) official said on Feb. 26. […]