Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it fined ride-sharing provider Uber 385,000 pounds (U.S. $490,000) for failing to take adequate steps to protect the personal data of its customers during a cyberattack suffered by the company in 2016. […]

In an Inspector General (IG) report released Nov. 20, the Department of the Interior got taken to task for allowing an employee to visit 9,000 pornographic websites in under seven months. This is the IG second report chastising the department for an employee viewing porn on agency time and technology. […]

The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), meeting last week to consider data protection issues broadly, discussed the importance of protecting digital information and privacy in an era of increasing global terrorism and cybercrime. […]

Congress Capitol Senate House
USPS Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Services (USPS) has fixed a security flaw within its Informed Delivery service that was allowing criminals to perpetrate a multitude of identity theft and credit card fraud schemes. […]

elections, election security, voting

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Tuesday her intention to restore the Elections Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration, which was created during the 110th Congress but abolished in 2013. Pelosi, who will likely be elected House majority leader when Democrats take control of the House in January, also announced that Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, will serve as chairwoman of the subcommittee. […]

Electric Grid Substation Tennessee Valley Authority

With November being National Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency Month, cyberattacks on electricity providers like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) are being brought into focus, and a new report from TVA’s Inspector General raises some concerns about the organization’s ability to deal with potential ransomware attacks. […]

NASA
NIST

Federal agencies are using the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to manage their agencies’ cybersecurity risk, a year after the White House issued an executive order directing the heads of executive agencies and departments to use the NIST framework, according to an agency official. […]

State Department
Collaboration Global Federal government United Kingdom

A report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) released Monday argues that devices infected by botnets need to be eliminated. The report proposed increasing regulations and holding more organizations accountable for malicious botnet activity to achieve its goal. […]

Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on Nov. 19 seeking public comment on “criteria for identifying emerging technologies” that are essential to U.S. national security and that may be included in possible future export control regulations. […]

European union EU-min

The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) on Monday released an interactive tool that consumers, businesses, and governments can use to “measure and quantify” the deployment of the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) email security protocol. […]

Russia hacking hack cyber-min

Hackers with ties to the Russian government are using a spear-phishing campaign to impersonate Department of State employees, according to cybersecurity firms FireEye and CrowdStrike. […]

Google Cloud

Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud, announced Friday that she will be leaving her post in early 2019–a specific date was not mentioned. […]

Cybersecurity cyber

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) on Friday announced that S&T and the Dutch government are each putting up $1.25 million to fund “collaborative cybersecurity research and development” across five U.S.-Dutch research teams. […]

voting booth, election security
Federal money spending government
Insider threat cybersecurity

Federal agencies need to get into second gear in their efforts to defend against insider threats, as outlined in the “Insider Threat Program Maturity Framework” released this month by the National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF). Agencies must move past the minimum standards many have established and become more proactive in countering what the task force said is a dynamic threat that has moved beyond basic defenses, according to the framework. […]

data privacy, people, personal data, binary
Federal money spending government

IT officials from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) detailed progress their agencies have made so far in utilizing grants awarded by the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), and highlighted the benefits of TMF funding including the ability to repay the working capital fund through cost savings. […]

GSA General Services Administration
Pentagon Military Defense DoD
Cybersecurity flag

Senior officials from the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Homeland Security (DHS) told House members on Wednesday that they are busy working out details of a recently finalized cybersecurity coordination agreement focused on improving Federal government cyber defenses generally, and specifically the cyber defenses of critical infrastructure components on which DoD facilities rely, among other areas. […]

USPS Postal Service

Fraudsters are using the U.S. Postal Services’ (USPS’) Informed Delivery service to perpetrate a multitude of identity theft and credit card fraud schemes, according to an alert the Secret Service sent its law enforcement partners on Nov. 6. […]

military healthcare, veterans healthcare

The House Committee on Veterans Affairs’ Subcommittee on Technology Modernization met today to review the first 180 days of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program, with members of Congress anxious to see evidence of progress in the program and VA officials offering some details that point in that direction. […]

quantum computing chip ai -min

Alex Measure, senior economist at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)–who has developed and deployed an artificial intelligence application to help the agency analyze workforce health data–said on Tuesday that convincing agency leaders to pursue AI applications can be the toughest part of the development and deployment journey. […]

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