elections, voting, election security, midterms

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published a list of best practices for securing election systems on May 21. […]

The Defense Security Service has awarded a $75 million contract to Perspecta through an other transaction agreement (OTA) that will work to add advanced AI to backend systems and modernize the vetting processes of security clearance personnel for the National Background Investigation Service (NBIS). […]

World globe trade

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) still has hackable vulnerabilities in its computer networks, while the Republican National Committee (RNC) performed slightly better than the DNC, but still has gaps to fill, according to a new report. […]

President Trump was a victim of hacking on May 17 when four false scores were posted to Trump’s United States Golf Association-administered Golf Handicap and Information Network (GHIN) system. The scores were middling by golf standards (101, 100, 108 and 102), and deviated from Trump’s typical reported scores which fall in the 70s and 80s. […]

President Donald Trump declared a “national emergency” when he signed an executive order (EO) on May 15 that would grant Federal authority to prohibit the adoption of foreign adversaries’ telecom suppliers. Though the order was signed only a day ago, both legislators and trade groups have already weighed in and the EO has received mostly positive reviews. […]

The vast majority of security IT decision makers are willing to share threat intelligence data with the government to help improve decision making when it comes to cyberattacks, according to an IronNet survey release today. […]

cyber threat

Financial losses from internet-enabled cyber crimes have continued to grow and were responsible for the loss of $2.7 billion in 2018, according to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual Internet Crime Report for 2018 published last month. […]

Russia hacking hack cyber-min
Cybersecurity flag

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., announced the formal launch of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) on May 8. The two lawmakers will lead the 14-person Commission. […]

Federal CIO Suzette Kent met with members of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) today to discuss strengthening the partnerships between Federal and state governments. […]

password IAM ICAM easy pwd admin priviliges identity access management authentication credential

While few can pronounce the Air Force CTO’s name – zero can spell it – which leads us in nicely to Frank Konieczny’s presentation on Zero Trust at Akamai’s event on Tuesday, April 30, “Zero Trust: Moving Beyond Perimeter Security.” […]

DOJ Department of Justice

The Department of Justice announced May 3 that it, in partnership with German authorities, has charged three German nationals with operating Wall Street Market (WSM), “which was one of the world’s largest dark web marketplaces that allowed vendors to sell a wide variety of contraband,” including malware. […]

Capital, House of Representatives, Congress, Senate
Pipeline

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) revise its pipeline security, cybersecurity guidelines, and risk assessment methodology, and build a more robust cybersecurity workforce to enhance its pipeline security program. […]

Christopher Krebs under secretary undersecretary DHS Department of Homeland Security National Protection and Programs Directorate NPPD leader CISA cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency

On the Hill, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs made the case for his agency’s FY2020 $3.17 billion budget request – which represents a cut over FY2019 funding levels – during an April 30 House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation hearing. In a rare move, there was strong bipartisan support for increasing the funding request and providing more funding to help improve the nation’s cybersecurity posture. […]

Cybersecurity cyber

Across multiple cybersecurity programs and efforts, the Federal government is prioritizing protection for its high value assets (HVAs), said speakers at ATARC’s Government Information Technology Executive Council (GITEC) conference on Monday, April 29. […]

voting, election security

Professional services company, Accenture, has won a blanket purchase order agreement contract – worth a potential $2 billion – from the Department of Energy (DOE), according to a news release on the company’s website. […]

binary, data privacy, breach, data

Efforts to secure data under regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation have not improved protections, a Varonis report indicates. Varonis found an uptick in sensitive data availability to personnel this year versus last, after analyzing 54 billion files. The report found that 53 percent of companies have over 1,000 sensitive files open […]

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) provided an update on the 19 recommendations it made to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made in March 2018 and of those recommendations, the EPA has taken actions to improve on five of the recommendations as of April 2019. […]

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are becoming significantly more frequent and voluminous as attacks have become multi-vectored and transformative over time, according to an April 24 Neustar whitepaper. […]

Categories