Agencies are rolling out aspects of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program with varying degrees of speed and success, but the inherent benefits of the program are not being questioned. […]
On Tuesday, President Trump released his management agenda, which focused heavily on his IT modernization goals. Top of mind for the administration? Improving the customer experience, helping agencies better deliver on their missions, and reducing costs to the taxpayer. […]
Federal IT comes with some baggage–much of its data is trapped in legacy technologies. Agencies can’t realistically pick everything up and move to more modern infrastructure. So how do they bridge the gap? MeriTalk’s latest report found that improving data sharing between new and legacy systems is the number one solution to accelerating Federal IT modernization. The “Modernizing the Monolith” study explores why legacy systems are so persistent and outlines a path to modernizing with them, instead of in spite of them. […]
A recent study showing just how easy it is to hack into Internet of Things (IoT) devices–and to use that access to gain entrance to a larger network–focused on commercial products used in the home. However, it could serve as yet another wake-up call for the Department of Defense and other government agencies that are increasingly relying on IoT. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been working in unison with the Office of Management and Budget to assess the risk management posture of the Federal government. They’ve been using a combination of agency self-reporting and independent verification to evaluate each agency’s mitigation techniques as well as the nation’s overall security standing. DHS’ latest […]
Government IT leaders may feel a little punch drunk lately. Between new mandates, an understaffed workforce, and aging systems–they are getting hit from all angles. Indeed, Chad Sheridan, CIO for USDA’s Risk Management Agency kicked off his keynote at last Thursday’s Veritas Public Sector Vision Day in Washington, D.C. by quoting Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” […]
Do agencies have enough time to make a smooth transition to the new Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract by spring of 2020 when the older telecom contract vehicles expire? […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) deployments in the Federal government are already making government smarter, based on examples shared during the second of a three-part series on AI launched last month by the House Subcommittee on Information Technology. Federal agency leaders from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the General Services Administration (GSA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discussed how AI is being implemented to improve the mission of their agencies and what is required to ensure the technology continues to be viewed as a problem solver. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) and contractor Cerner are coming off an eight week break in the initial deployment of what’s planned to be a worldwide health care records system. The team stopped work to address glitches in system performance and contend with negative user feedback. But officials in charge of the deployment of the MHS Genesis system said the pause was planned as part of the rollout, initial complaints were expected, and DoD still expects to complete the $4.3 billion system by 2022. […]
Not all bots are bad. But in the wrong hands, botnets can be commanded to do some very nefarious things, like Distributed Denial of Service–DDoS–attacks to disrupt and bring down websites. There are also malware-based bots that are increasingly being used to steal data and personal information. […]
Last month the Congressional Subcommittee on Information Technology began a three-part series of hearings to break through the myths and the hype to gain a real understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the role it can play in the Federal government. […]
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has completed the transition of the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) to a virtual network, which increases its bandwidth tenfold, while supporting plans to extend SIPRNet to the very edges of the network via the commercial cloud. […]
New technologies and techniques are changing the cybercrime landscape in a significant way, creating new challenges for those entrusted with protecting networks and data. […]
In times of emergency, state governors have regularly called in the National Guard, for reasons such as assisting the recovery after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or to suppress protests in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. If voting systems are under siege, should they do the same? […]
Critical infrastructure protection is so vital to the United States’ national and economic security, as well as public health and safety, that disruption or destruction of any of the 16 critical sectors would have a debilitating effect on the nation. […]
Acronyms abound with a seemingly endless stream of Federal IT regulations and guidelines related to cloud and cyber security. Trying to make sense of the madness? On March 8, at “Cyber Convergence: Security, the Cloud and Your Data,” Federal visionaries will crack the code on some of the most critical developments in government’s IT agenda – from cloud-based application security to MGT, FITARA, and more. […]
The proliferation of digital platforms within the government–including mobile devices, cloud computing and the Internet of Things–has increased the sprawl of the computing landscape and with it new vulnerabilities for potential cyber attacks. […]
Reports surfaced five years ago that the Kremlin had started buying typewriters to avoid computer leaks. Suffice to say, it’s a complicated cyber world out there today–from nation states to cyber criminals to organized crime to 400lbs guys in their bedrooms in New Jersey. And, in this dynamic environment, the only thing we know for sure is that the way we’ve done things before won’t protect us anymore. Trustwave Government Solutions is debuting its new Threat Hunting service for forward-leaning government agencies that are tired of having their cyber clocks cleaned. […]
Pentagon and allied leaders agree that future conflicts will likely take the shape of a “hyperwar” –a fast-paced clash guided via cyberspace and accelerated by artificial intelligence, but with real, even possibly nuclear, consequences. NATO’s most recent risk report, the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Initiative, states that the next world war could come as a hyperwar, and says North Korea, China, and Russia are working on the capability. Speakers on a panel at this month’s AFCEA West 2018 conference in San Diego agreed, emphasizing that the United States needs to keep up with technological developments being adopted by other countries, particularly with regard to artificial intelligence (AI). […]
With the passion of an evangelical, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan preached the Defense Department’s (DoD) “uncompromising” approach to cybersecurity last month at the AFCEA West conference in San Diego. And, his sermon included spreading the responsibility for cybersecurity to industry as a condition of winning contracts. […]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a new Cyber-Digital Task Force on Tuesday. The group will examine both how DOJ currently combats cyber threats and ways it could improve its cyber threat response. […]
Pentagon leaders say they’re serious about getting ahead in the artificial intelligence (AI) game, which increasingly could include the “games” involved in the modeling and simulation programs used for training. […]
The Air Force wants to take the idea of a virtual assistant to the next level, with a system that not only draws from existing information to answer questions, but puts some additional thought into helping airmen make better decisions. This is accomplished by quizzing them about what, precisely, they plan to do. […]
The Trump Administration’s proposed $4.4 trillion budget for FY2019 would add some money to the cybersecurity pot, supporting ongoing programs and manpower levels, while cutting back on cybersecurity research and redistributing where the research money goes. Administration budget requests are largely political documents whose numbers won’t hold up once Congress gets done with making the sausage, but they do reflect White House priorities. […]
Agencies undergoing digital transformation are combining on-premise, hybrid, and multiple cloud solutions into their environments. To that end, agencies need to weave cloud security and protection of on-premise systems into their broader security strategy for a true, defense-in-depth approach. […]
The Pentagon and White House are chewing over what to do about fitness tracking apps, in wake of the news last week that a global heat map posted online by Strava could be used to identify the whereabouts and activities of military personnel, including those in conflict zones and other sensitive areas such as the halls of the National Security Agency. A heat map transforms data into a map in which values are represented by colors, which in this case includes the location of fitness trackers carried by government employees. […]
As we barrel into Valentine’s Day, seems industry is falling in love again with NIST’s cyber framework makeover. Business groups and the tech sector reacted favorably to the latest update to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure, but noted more work needs to be done in several key areas. […]
MeriTalk has confirmed ringside rumors that Jeff Eisensmith is looking to hang up his gloves at DHS. After more than five years going toe-to-toe with America’s cyber adversaries, we’d like to wish America’s leading CISO the very best as he punches out. […]
The FBI fell far short of its own goals for fighting cybercrime in 2017, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) audit. The FBI reported disrupting or dismantling 262 high-level criminal operations targeting global U.S. interests, only about half of its goal of 500, and roughly one-tenth of the 2,492 cybercrime operations it broke up in 2014. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) would like to get rid of the Common Access Card (CAC), but the problem–finding a suitable replacement. It turns out that the replacement won’t be one thing, but multiple biometric identifiers that combine to make out a person’s identity. […]