Federal agencies are focusing on ways they can leverage new technologies, such as automation, to improve IT service management and streamline cybersecurity processes, as they work to keep up with a threat landscape that changes constantly. ServiceNow’s Bob Osborn said that ServiceNow is integrating artificial intelligence capabilities into its platform so that agencies can use the newest automation technologies as they become available. […]

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., told Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Oct. 18 that he has found it impossible to talk to anyone from the Department of Justice about cybersecurity legislation. Whitehouse said during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that intelligence officials have told the committee that the election systems could be hacked by foreign actors. Whitehouse is interested in working with different agencies to develop legislation on cybersecurity. […]

The Department of Homeland Security met with the Election Infrastructure Coordinating Council to discuss risk management tactics for election cybersecurity. The council is working to build partnerships to keep election systems secure. […]

When Maria Roat became the chief information officer of the Small Business Administration, she had a few goals to accomplish in the first year: Get on Microsoft Office 16 and Windows 10, get to four racks on the agency’s data center, and move from copper to fiber. For a small government agency, these goals were ambitious. In Roat’s first month at SBA, a third of the agency’s network was saturated. Roat partnered with Microsoft to make these goals a reality. […]

The Department of Homeland Security announced a binding operational directive for agencies to increase their email and Web security. […]

The Department of Defense is recognizing National Cybersecurity Month by expanding cybersecurity education to families of service members. “This is not just an IT issue,” said Essye Miller, deputy CIO for cybersecurity and chief information security officer for DoD. “Everyone that’s operating on the network has a responsibility.” […]

The FBI needs access to encrypted files in order to protect the nation against cyber crime, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “Encryption is essential,” Rosenstein said “It is a foundational element of data security and authentication. It is central to the growth and flourishing of the digital economy. We in law enforcement have no desire to undermine encryption. But ‘warrant-proof’ encryption poses a serious problem.” […]

The FirstNet national communications network for first responders still faces challenges to ensure the network’s reliability, security, and interoperability. Mark Goldstein, director of physical infrastructure issues at the Government Accountability Office, said that FirstNet struggles with providing network coverage to rural and hard-to-reach areas, ensuring the network’s overall resiliency and cybersecurity, managing frameworks for verifying user identity, and prioritizing the users on the network. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, is working on the text of his bill to create the Cyber National Guard, a scholarship program that will help train students for cybersecurity jobs in the Federal government. Students who apply for the Cyber National Guard would receive scholarship money for cybersecurity training programs. Once the students graduate, they would spend the same number of years working for a Federal agency as they did receiving scholarship money to attend school. […]

The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed to MeriTalk that Barry West will serve as the acting deputy CIO, as well as be appointed to a limited-term senior executive service position as senior adviser. […]

South Korean officials announced that they suspect that North Korean hackers stole U.S. and South Korean military documents. A South Korean newspaper reported that hackers stole 235 gigabytes of documents from South Korean military networks in August and September of 2016. The documents included U.S. and South Korea personnel reports and a plan to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. […]

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation collection of personally identifiable information was hacked 54 times between Jan. 1, 2015, and Dec. 1, 2016, according to an Inspector General report. […]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Oct. 6 that the Federal government needs to classify cyberattacks on the United States as acts of war. Clinton referred to the Russian hacks on the Democratic National Committee as a reason for the U.S. to retaliate against such breaches. […]

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on Oct. 5 that requires Federal agencies to set up an information sharing network to correspond about threats to national security. […]

Senators in hearings this week denounced Equifax’s handling of the data breach that is now estimated to have affected 145 million Americans. Equifax Chairman and former CEO Richard Smith testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Oct. 4. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, called for the administration to nominate more permanent agency chief information officers. “I’m worried that we don’t want to stall some of the progress that we’ve achieved over the last couple of years,” Hurd said. […]

The Department of Homeland Security plans next month to stand up a governmentwide dashboard that will give the agency visibility into all of the Federal networks. The dashboard is part of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program, which was supported in the White House’s IT Modernization report. […]

President Donald Trump declared October 2017 National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The announcement follows the Equifax breach in September, which affected about 143 million U.S. consumers. Trump signed a Cybersecurity Executive Order in May in an effort to strengthen Federal cybersecurity and hold agency heads accountable for security issues. […]

Cybersecurity standards for Internet of Things devices need to be improved in order to secure medical devices that have created the “Internet of Bodies.” Terrell McSweeny, commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, said that more regulation needs to be written before connected medical devices become commonplace. […]

Government doesn’t take the dangers of metadata security seriously enough, members of industry said at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure event on Sept. 26. They cited the passage of SJ 34, which reduced regulations on Internet service providers’ use of metadata generated by their customers. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services is distilling cyber threat intelligence for a health care audience, according to HHS CISO Chris Wlaschin, who spoke at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology Briefing on Sept. 26. He said the Healthcare Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center is not meant “to replace current capabilities or functionality or services provided by” the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center. […]

The Deloitte data breach that compromised the confidential emails and plans of some of its clients affected Federal agencies. Deloitte serves clients in finance, media, and government, which all had data in the breached email system. The affected organizations include major companies and U.S. government departments. […]

Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Tim Murphy, R-Pa., sent a letter requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) attend a briefing with the Energy and Commerce committee on pharmaceutical companies affected by malware, such as the recent NotPetya malware’s impact on pharmaceutical company Merck. […]

President Donald Trump will sign a memorandum today to strengthen computer science education in schools, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced during a press briefing on Sept. 25. The memorandum will mandate that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos provide $200 million per year in grants for science and technology education to strengthen STEM programs in schools, and to add computer science to the curriculum in K-12 schools. […]

Department of Homeland Security officials told 21 states on Sept. 22 that their election systems were breached by Russian hackers. This is the first instance that the Federal government told states whether they were targeted. […]

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., reintroduced legislation this week that would require companies that experience a breach to notify affected individuals within 30 days of the breach’s discovery and that they coordinate with the Federal Trade Commission to do so. […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement on Sept. 20, which said that it learned in August 2017 of a cyberattack previously detected in 2016 might have allowed illicit gain through trading. In May 2017, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton initiated an assessment of the agency’s internal cybersecurity risk profile and approach to cybersecurity. […]

The Internet of Things has spawned many changes within the Federal government, including new methods of data collection at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), new policy considerations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and a realignment of the Office of the CIO (OCIO) at the Department of Commerce. […]

Information sharing about cybersecurity threats has to go beyond fulfilling requirements and instead include informal relationships and discussions between agencies, according to government experts who spoke at the MeriTalk Cyber Security Brainstorm on Sept. 20. […]

One of the most important aspects of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program is making sure that the dashboard is flexible and able to display metrics that the specific agencies want to track. […]