Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a Malware Analysis Report (MAR) on Wednesday warning industry about cyberattacks from the Lazarus Group, which is widely believed to be backed by the North Korean government. […]

Cybersecurity cyber

British police arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today in response to a U.S. extradition request after a Federal court issued an indictment that charged him with one count of conspiracy to hack a U.S. government network to disclose classified documents. […]

Senate hearing Congressional-min

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., a co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus since its founding in 2008, isn’t giving up easily on one of his chief ideas to improve how Congress deals with cybersecurity: radically shrinking jurisdiction over the issue.  […]

Cyber America Connected Internet of things

Help could be on the way for state and local governments grappling with defending against cyber attacks, in the form of bipartisan legislation introduced in the House and Senate that would authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to operate a grant program for states looking to implement better cybersecurity and recovery measures. […]

Testifying today in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee which is reviewing the Navy’s FY2020 Defense Authorization Request, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said the service branch is sending a proposition up to Congress to add a fifth assistant secretary to address cyber needs. […]

Cybersecurity cyber

When the Trusted Internet Connections 3.0 (TIC 3.0) policy is finalized, Federal agencies can expect to quickly have four or five use cases that are approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) due to initial pilots, said Michael Duffy, acting deputy director for DHS’ Federal Network Resilience Division, at Forcepoint’s Cybersecurity Leadership Forum on April 4. […]

The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) said it will spend $2.5 million to support efforts to provide cybersecurity toolkits for election offices, community organizations, and journalists in preparation for the 2020 presidential election. […]

FBI

While some may question the rationale behind indicting people in countries that are unlikely to extradite to the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) sees value in the activity as one aspect in a national strategy of deterrence, said Tonya Ugoretz, deputy assistant director in the Cyber Division of the FBI. […]

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., on April 3 introduced an updated version of their Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act (DETER Act), which they said promises “swift and severe consequences” to Russia and other “foreign actors” if they attack U.S. political candidates, campaigns, or voting infrastructure. […]

As Tax Day approaches, Proofpoint called attention to an increase in tax-related malware and phishing campaigns in a blog post on Wednesday. […]

Making artificial intelligence (AI) explainable to the general public has come with its challenges in recent years and knowing where to start includes identifying high-consequence sectors that need future research and policymaker consideration. […]

military healthcare, veterans healthcare

Defense Department (DoD) officials today underscored the importance of the agency’s ongoing electronic health records (EHR) modernization efforts at a Senate Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee hearing on the Defense Health Program FY2020 budget request. […]

federal workforce worker hired-min

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will increase the authority CIOs have over direct hiring decisions, according to a post on Federal Register. […]

FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Cyber Guardian program, which provides cyber-attack victim notification services, is operating with “incomplete and unreliable” data, and as a result the FBI is unable to determine whether all such victims are being notified, according to a report released April 1 by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General. […]

General Services Administration GSA

According to a new survey by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)², women make up about 24 percent of the U.S. cybersecurity workforce currently, as measured among cybersecurity workforce and IT professionals who spend at least 25 percent of their time on security work. […]

FEMA

Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sent a letter to Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Peter Gaynor last week to address the sensitive personal data of hurricane and wildfire survivors that was mistakenly shared with contractors. […]

A survey released by cybersecurity technology provider Venafi of 517 IT security professionals finds that 73 percent of those believe that countries with government-mandated encryption backdoors are more susceptible to nation-state attacks. “This is not rocket science; backdoors inevitably create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious actors,” said Kevin Bocek, a vice president at […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Wednesday that Office Depot agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations that the company “tricked customers into buying millions of dollars’ worth of computer repair and technical services by deceptively claiming their software had found malware symptoms on the customers’ computers.” Support.com, Office Depots’ software supplier, agreed to pay $10 million to settle the same allegations. […]

IT workers workforce technology federal employees-min

Women make up less than a quarter of the cybersecurity workforce and while efforts are underway to boost that number, success has been limited. New America, a non-partisan think tank, released a report on Thursday detailing the current status of women in the cyber workforce, efforts to increase the number of women in the field, and steps that can be taken to improve hiring and retention across the industry. […]

Cyber Security Brainstorm

In a report released Wednesday, Kaspersky Lab found that malicious activity targeting industrial control systems (ICS) impacted nearly half (47.2 percent) of all computers under its protection in 2018, up from 44 percent in 2017. […]

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, better known as Europol, met with the European Cybercrime Centre Advisory Groups on Financial Services, Internet Security and Communication Providers to discuss phishing attacks and how to fight and prevent them. […]

White House

President Trump on March 26 said he was extending by one year–to April 2020–the national emergency regarding cybersecurity threats that was declared by President Obama in 2015 under Executive Order 13694, and amended in 2016 by Executive Order 13757. […]

Congress must take action to ensure that consumer data is being adequately protected at consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), witnesses said at Tuesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy hearing. […]

capitol washington dc senate house congress-min

In one of many budget hearings taking place on the Hill this week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government heard from Russell T. Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding the agency’s FY2020 budget request. While the bulk of the hearing didn’t address IT issues, Vought did touch on IT spending, IT modernization, and the President’s Management Agenda (PMA). […]

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