A bill introduced by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, on Sept. 7 aims to create a national standard for financial institutions to notify consumers of data security breaches. […]
A new GAO report details how Equifax submitted to audits from agencies with which the company had contracts, but declined an offer of help from the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the company’s 2017 data breach that exposed sensitive personal information of 143 million Americans. […]
Airport and private sector cybersecurity officials warned House members on Thursday of persistent cyber threats to the aviation sector, with two witnesses saying they regard such threats as the most dangerous that the industry faces currently. […]
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday released its set of legislative recommendations for Congress to consider if and when it tackles data privacy issues, and placed maximum emphasis on the ideas that “sensitive personal information” of individuals deserve the highest level of protection, and that state data privacy statutes should be preempted by new federal law. […]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is the latest in a string of organizations to release its recommendations on how Federal, state, and local officials can best secure U.S. elections, including the use of paper-ballot components. […]
The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would direct the Secretary of State to sanction and publish the names of foreign actors that have launched cyber attacks on the United States. H.R. 5576, the Cyber Deterrence and Response Act of 2018, passed the House on a voice vote. […]
Defense Department CIO Dana Deasy declined to comment today on DoD’s extension earlier this week of the deadline on the Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative (JEDI) cloud contract from September 17 to October 9. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released an updated version of a report it issued in July detailing major cybersecurity challenges facing the Federal government and critical actions needed to address them. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) said today it charged Park Jin Hyok, a North Korean citizen and computer programmer, for conspiring in several high-profile cyber attacks including the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures, the 2018 WannaCry 2.0 ransomware attacks, and the 2016 theft of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is focused on modernizing its mindset to tackle a host of pressing issues including reducing its reliance on legacy systems, competing to attract cybersecurity talent, and combating supply chain threats, said DHS CIO Dr. John Zangardi today at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit. […]
The FBI wants to use artificial intelligence to add a new layer to its Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, specifically to counteract the increasingly common practice of criminals altering their fingerprints. […]
The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee today voiced some interest in considering Federal government regulation of social media companies and their services, but offered no concrete steps on how to do so. […]
Browser maker Mozilla has named Alan Davidson vice president of global policy, trust, and security. He was director of Digital Economy at the Department of Commerce from 2015 to 2017. […]
Karen Evans was sworn in Tuesday as assistant secretary of Energy for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)–a newly created position at the agency, after the Senate confirmed her nomination last week. […]
A cybersecurity exercise hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) revealed complications that can arise in the response to an attack on critical infrastructure including challenges in establishing authority among multiple agencies and levels of government. […]
Bob Kolasky, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recently created National Risk Management Center (NRMC), said today that DHS is taking action this month to boost the level of communication and data exchange among state and local election officials in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November. […]
The House of Representatives today approved by voice vote HR 6443, the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act, which would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program into law. […]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a new webpage focusing on combating foreign influence campaigns. […]
The Census Bureau found nearly 3,100 security weaknesses after testing 33 of its 44 systems, leaving a large amount of work to be done before the 2020 Census, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the agency’s IT systems. […]
The State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a new report that flags security control issues for a data analytics test network and internal case management system operated by the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Office of Fraud Prevention Programs (OFPP), and reported that OFPP is taking steps to resolve the problem. […]
Cybersecurity officials must balance strategic thinking on issues such as training and collaboration amid the tactical challenges of finding enough cyber professionals and funding, said Federal government executives during a panel at the Digital Government Institute’s 930Gov event on August 28. […]
News out of the Australian government this month provided a glaring reminder that the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain isn’t software vulnerabilities or patching cycles, it’s the person behind the keyboard. […]
Email authentication technologies provider Valimail said today it will provide its email anti-fraud service free of charge to state boards of election, voting system vendors, and major-party U.S. election campaigns. […]
The Senate late Tuesday approved by voice vote the nomination of Karen Evans as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)–a newly created position at the agency. […]
John Noble, former director of the National Cyber Security Centre in the United Kingdom, took a pessimistic view on the future of cybersecurity during a BeyondTrust webinar on Wednesday. […]
The ransomware attack on the city of Atlanta in March of this year, which brought down numerous online city services for several days, should be seen as a warning for similar attacks on municipalities in the future with even more drastic impacts as city services become more reliant on IT systems, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said Tuesday. […]
Mitre, a non-profit organization that manages federally funded research and development centers supporting several Federal agencies, has tapped Gary Gagnon to be both VP of cyber strategy and chief security officer. […]
Matthew Travis, deputy undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Programs and Protection Directorate (NPPD), said today that DHS’s recently-established National Risk Management Center (NRMC) represents the agency’s plan to play “the long game” in defending U.S. critical infrastructure sectors from attacks. […]
Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct biennial reviews and provide dedicated funding to the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program after finding erratic contracts and little planning documentation. The request was made via a letter to DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen on Monday. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Facebook, and Microsoft hosted a joint briefing on Friday, Aug. 24, for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) regarding “actions being taken to combat malicious interference operations.” […]