Government agencies and the private sector will spend $100 billion or more to recover from the SolarWinds hack, which went undetected for at least nine months and may have compromised 18,000 government and private sector organizations using SolarWinds Orion software. Even if breached organizations successfully mitigate the damage from SolarWinds, they know adversaries aren’t going to stop trying to get in. If they plug one vector of attack, the adversary will find another to exploit. […]
This February, milCloud 2.0 – one of the key pillars of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) cloud strategy – celebrated its third anniversary, and it continues to offer DoD mission partners a rapid path for cloud migration. […]
The House Homeland Security and Oversight and Reform committees held a joint public hearing today to discuss the Russia-based hack of government and private sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products. During the hearing, both the private sector witnesses and members of Congress called for better cybersecurity practices, legislation, and increased information sharing. […]
The Federal Communications Commission has voted to formally adopt a Report and Order that establishes the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. The program uses $3.2 billion in Federal funding to provide qualifying households discounts on their internet service bills and an opportunity to receive a discount on a computer or tablet. […]
Federal leaders agreed during a Feb. 25 virtual conference organized by GovExec that the Federal government needs to change its mindset and culture to allow for more telework in the future, even after the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., are introducing legislation that will provide up to $15 billion in matching grants to increase access to broadband services in areas of the United States that are unserved by broadband meeting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) minimum definition of that service. […]
The bipartisan Cyber Diplomacy Act was reintroduced in the house this week. The legislation, cosponsored by Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Bill Keating, D-Mass., will require the State Department to open the Bureau of International Cyberspace Policy. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced today that DHS will increase the required minimum spend on cybersecurity through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant awards from 5 percent to 7.5 percent – approximately a $25 million increase across the country. […]
The Department of Labor’s (DoL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report stating the agency is making progress on improving the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, which has faced billions of dollars in widespread unemployment compensation fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) named Matt Hartman the deputy executive assistant director of cybersecurity at the agency this month, confirmed by Hartman’s LinkedIn profile. […]
While it’s no secret that the healthcare sector became a major target for ransomware attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Chris Krebs is shedding new light on the tone of CISA’s efforts to bite back against health-sector threats. […]
Federal leaders agreed on Feb. 24 at a virtual conference organized by FCW that while implementing the Federal government’s Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) framework can be difficult, ICAM is the key to the government’s digital transformation. […]
Amid the shift to widescale telework to stem the spread of COVID-19, Federal, state, and local government (SLG) employees are dealing with an increase in credential-theft mobile attacks. […]
The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is looking to streamline desk and conference room reservations through a cloud-based solution. […]
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to introduce a bill to ensure the United States will “out-compete China” as a global tech leader and create new American jobs in the tech industry. […]
With the “beta” in beta.SAM.gov just a few short months from retirement, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced it will validate the identity of agency administrators starting May 24. […]
An executive order to be signed by President Biden today will order Federal agencies to conduct year-long reviews of their supply chain and industrial base risks, with the defense industrial base (DIB) and information and communications technology (ICT) industrial base among six key sectors identified in the order. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued a request for information (RFI) searching for 5G technologies to support space data transport. […]
Speaking today during an open hearing on the hacking of U.S. networks by foreign adversaries, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., questioned why the U.S. shouldn’t have mandatory cyberattack reporting systems in light of the recent Russia-backed hack of government and private sector networks via SolarWinds software products. […]
The newly formed House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems (CITI) held its first hearing today, in which members called for the Department of Defense (DoD) to accelerate technology innovation and adoption if the United States wants to remain a global leader in the “competition to innovate.” […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) released a new set of ethics principles on Feb. 22 for stakeholders both inside and outside of the agency to follow in an effort to better protect veterans’ data. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) is re-awarding its 2nd Generation IT (2GIT) Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) with estimated values of $5.5 billion over five years. […]
The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) is looking for data management services to help develop a large research resource to advance in breast cancer research. […]
In response to a sharp spike in IT services and cybersecurity demands for a dispersed workforce, President Joe Biden made Federal technology modernization one of his early priorities, citing the need to upgrade Federal IT as “an urgent national security issue.” […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to do a better job collecting necessary data from its Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Grant Program – which funds efforts to reduce and prevent extremist violence in the United States – the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report that found that DHS didn’t obtain data on the performance of grantees for 2017-2019. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Feb. 22 announced several steps to help meet President Biden’s goal to advance cybersecurity in the Federal government, including increasing spending to improve cybersecurity in some areas. […]
Two influential House committees said they will hold a public hearing into the Russia-based hack of government and private sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products, along with other recent attacks, on Feb. 26 at 9 a.m. […]
The Secret Service is looking to purchase approximately 2,000 cloud-based body cameras for its agents, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on Beta.Sam.gov. The RFI notes that the eventual contract would be a firm fixed-price contract. […]
The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council – whose leadership spans Federal, state, and local government election officials – applauded inter-government cooperation on implementing cybersecurity safeguards in the 2020 election cycle, and pledged to use lessons learned going forward to improve election security and resiliency. […]
Fresh on the heels of last month’s news that AWS is coming to GDIT’s milCloud 2.0, experts from both companies are set for a deep dive on Feb. 24 – exploring how the new addition to the milCloud 2.0 lineup provides Department of Defense (DoD) mission owners with secure cloud services. […]