The House voted late yesterday to approve H.R. 6227, the National Quantum Initiative Act, which would create a Federal program to speed quantum research and development “for the economic and national security” of the United States. […]
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on Wednesday it took a series of actions against Russian operatives for election interference and other malicious cyber activities. […]
Since the President’s Management Agenda was issued in March, Federal agencies have been working governmentwide to “provide a modern, streamlined, and responsive customer experience [CX] across government, comparable to leading private sector organizations.” According to an update released Wednesday on Performance.gov, agencies have made strong progress on the cross-agency priority (CAP) of improving CX with Federal services; however, the path forward has not been without bumps in the road. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) is seeking comment on a draft set of technical guidance and recommendations to improve the security and robustness of interdomain traffic exchange. […]
On Monday, the Senate unanimously passed the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act. The READI Act will “ensure more people receive relevant emergency alerts on their mobile phones, televisions, and radios, explore new ways of alerting the public through online video and audio streaming services, track and study false alerts when they occur, and improve the way states plan for emergency alerts,” according to a press release from the bill’s sponsor Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. The bipartisan legislation was also championed by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss. […]
According to a new survey conducted by Propeller Insights, on behalf of ExpressVPN, 82 percent of Americans think that Congress should do more in 2019 to regulate how big tech companies collect and process online personal data. […]
A group of 31 civil rights and advocacy groups released a letter today urging Mark Zuckerberg to step down as Facebook’s CEO. […]
A new study by Accenture finds that most Federal IT executives see themselves as supporting players, rather than prime movers, in technology modernization. […]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud modernization were the main topics of discussion at the Get Cloud Smart: The Art of the Possible event hosted by MeriTalk on December 13. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced the appointment of Brian Harrell as head of the Infrastructure Security Division at DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]
The Federal government spends at least $90 billion annually on IT, according to Performance.gov. And, Chris Liddell, deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, has said that the government could spend more than double that–up to $200 billion on IT each year. That type of spending could lead to innovation and efficiencies for Feds, but the path forward is often obstructed by end-of-life devices and unwieldy maintenance costs. […]
A group of 15 Democratic senators introduced a new piece of data privacy legislation on Wednesday. The legislation, named the Data Care Act, will, according to the bill’s lead sponsor Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, “require websites, apps, and other online providers to take responsible steps to safeguard personal information and stop the misuse of users’ data.” […]
As MeriTalk reported earlier this month, the Senate today took action on the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA Act) and passed the legislation under unanimous consent. […]
Expect to see more data breaches, attacks on critical infrastructure in the cloud, and more research into vulnerabilities into cloud computing in 2019, according to studies on upcoming threats in the new year. […]
A panel of Federal government artificial intelligence experts spoke on the importance of AI, ethical concerns, and use cases at the CXO Tech Forum on AI and Big Data in Government on Wednesday. […]
In today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, the Committee dug into what it called “China’s non-traditional espionage against the United States.” During the hearing, senators heard from cybersecurity, and intelligence experts about China’s attempts to use cybersecurity attacks and intellectual property theft to advance its global standing. […]
Federal officials are looking at 2019 as the year of the hybrid cloud, as agencies shift from the Cloud First policy of moving pell-mell into as-a-service models to the Cloud Smart policy, which focuses more on making cloud work with legacy systems and serving agency missions. […]
In a report released Monday, Symantec said that cyber espionage group Seedworm is increasing the rate of its attacks, having hit 130 victims in 30 organizations since September 2018 […]
Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., will introduce new legislation this week to “address cyber vulnerabilities created by the adoption of Internet-connected devices,” and specifically cyber threats of internet of things (IoT) devices owned and used by the Federal government. […]
The National Security Agency and Central Security Service inducted five new individuals to the NSA/CSS Hall of Honor on Nov. 28, according to a Dec. 7 NSA/CSS press release. […]
A growing challenge for development and security operation teams (DevSecOps) as they move workloads to cloud infrastructures is how to ensure that functions in the cloud adhere to their agency’s compliance and security policies. Cloud infrastructures are flexible and offer opportunities for settings to be changed or misconfigured, opening more access points for data breaches, system downtime, and costly compliant violations. […]
The United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union is estimating that by the end of this year, 3.9 billion people–or 51.2 percent of the global population–will be using the internet. […]
Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that the soon to be Democratic-controlled House could finalize legislation to strengthen election security by the end of January. […]
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations today released a report identifying core strategies to address and prevent cybersecurity incidents. After gathering input through hearings, briefings, reports, and roundtables, the subcommittee developed six specific priorities to create stronger protections against cyberattacks. […]
IT security provider Zscaler said this week it is one of four cloud service providers selected to pursue Joint Authorization Board (JAB) FedRAMP certification, at the High Impact level, through the FedRAMP Connect program. […]
The General Services Administration announced that Anil Cheriyan will be the new director of the agency’s Technology and Transformation Services unit and deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, replacing acting director Kelly Olson in early January. […]
A panel of Federal leaders agreed today they aren’t worried that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) technologies will leave Federal employees out of work, rather, they see the technologies as an opportunity to help an overloaded workforce further agency missions. […]
The Senate Rules & Administration Committee yesterday advanced two of President Trump’s nominations to the Election Assistance Committee. […]
Rod Turk, the Commerce Department’s acting CIO who will be retiring next month, said in a wide-ranging discussion today that the Federal government is approaching the “tipping point” in its IT modernization efforts, and that requirements put in place in recent years to strengthen the hand of Federal CIOs in pushing modernization are resulting in less “rogue” tech projects at agencies. […]
President Trump today signed S. 140, the “Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018,” into the law. […]