The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced Aug. 21 the appointment of Benjamin Huebner as chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency. […]
A Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit has found a “significant” backlog in medical documentation that needs to be entered into patients’ electronic health records (EHRs). […]
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., co-chairs the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, are seeking cyber professional expertise and input to help the commission tackle significant cybersecurity challenges that the United States and its allies face. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on a report, order, and further notice of proposed rulemaking dealing with the accuracy and usefulness of its Digital Opportunity Data Collection (DODC) that aims to more accurately determine residential and small business locations in the U.S. that do not have access to broadband services. […]
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that while IT risk management practices are improving for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), mitigation documentation and oversight practices need to be improved. […]
In the acquisition process for Federal IT, agencies are trying to secure their supply chains in myriad ways, and that includes taking great caution with acquiring refurbished equipment. […]
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) CTO Ed Simcox said at MeriTalk’s Cloud Connect 2019 event today that HHS has melded its IT principles with cloud and data analytics capabilities to develop an application program interface (API) that gives citizens power over their healthcare data. […]
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and credit scoring company FICO released its Q2 Assessment of Business Cyber Risk (ABC) report on Aug. 19. […]
Guy Cavallo, deputy CIO at the Small Business Administration (SBA), said today that his agency has made significant strides toward IT modernization by employing cloud services, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools provided by SBA’s cloud vendors to improve network security. […]
Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, confirmed to MeriTalk that he will reintroduce the Advancing Cybersecurity Continuing Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Act. His office said to expect the bill “within the next month or so.” […]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is creating a pilot program to test new data standards for the data collected in non-clinical studies funded by the agency, FDA announced in an upcoming Federal Register post. […]
The Commonwealth of Texas has earned the dubious honor of being the latest state or local government hit by a successful ransomware attack. The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) confirmed on Aug. 16 that at least 23 local government entities were hit by a “coordinated” ransomware attack. DIR said it will lead the cybersecurity response to the attack. […]
Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Ohio State University, with National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, developed an automated system to vet cloud servers and software library systems to bolster mobile app security. […]
U.S. Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly announced last week that the Navy will restructure the service branch’s CIO position, including having the CIO concurrently serve as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. […]
Principle Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence Kari Bingen, has sad that the security clearance backlog has been cut in half after a high point of 725,000 in April 2018. […]
The Federal government saw a 12 percent reduction in cybersecurity incidents in fiscal year 2018, and no “major” cybersecurity incidents for the year, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s annual report on the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA). […]
A significant percentage of surveyed working adults do not grasp or implement basic cybersecurity concepts and practices, according to Proofpoint’s recently released 2018 User Risk Report. […]
While “large impactful [cyber] incidents” are on the rise, there are fewer “high-profile public disclosures,” according to a FireEye’s year’s M-Trends 2019 Report, which is based on FireEye Mandiant’s investigations of the most interesting and impactful cyberattacks of 2018. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hopes to test Accelerate – the first block-chain based program in the Federal government to get an authority-to-operate – in the coming fall and rollout the portal fully in the beginning of 2020. […]
The Department of Energy (DoE) upgraded its Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) to help measure how organizations effectively protect themselves from cyber threats. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in partnership with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), announced on Aug. 14 the release of the 2019 National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) Toolkit. […]
A cyber threat landscape report released today found that the shifting cyber landscape has led threat actors to adjust operations strategically, operationally, and technically. […]
For harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, Federal agencies are focusing attention on “low-hanging fruit,” or easily solvable problems, as a strategic approach to utilizing the emerging technologies. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is progressing with its cloud strategy, and the agency’s components are leading the way in cloud migration, DHS Cloud Action Officer Kshemendra Paul said at FCW’s Smart Cloud, Smart Government workshop today. […]
Despite a downtick in number of states using paperless voting equipment since 2016, eight states are still expected to use paperless machines in the 2020 election, according to an Aug. 13 Brennan Center for Justice report. […]
TechNet President and CEO Linda Moore wrote the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Aug. 12 to raise concerns with the current draft of the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a new mobile application called VA Launchpad to save veterans and caregivers time online. […]
Hybrid cloud innovation is driving the data revolution and, the new data landscape will need its experts to power the future of the Federal agency data revolution. […]
A Federal hiring freeze ordered in a January 2017 presidential memo resulted in “significant” staffing reductions across the State Department – including the inability to fill two Senior Executive Service cybersecurity positions, which then delayed implementing an enterprise risk management program for IT systems. […]
The Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative announced that it has launched a new online tool to measure the level of networks’ MANRS compliance called the MANRS Observatory. […]