With $5 billion in global revenue, Symantec is the 500 pound yellow gorilla in the cybersecurity business. Some dimensions on the beast: installed at every Federal cabinet-level agency; supports 350,000 customers; tracks 700,000 hackers; and leverages more than nine trillion elements of security data. Now, that’s a big monkey. […]

In honor of National Veterans and Military Families Month, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration (NCA) is recommitting itself to its mission to “memorialize veterans in perpetuity.” The NCA is turning to crowdsourcing to revamp its outdated Nationwide Gravesite Locator, a web portal that allows users to access burial information for cemeteries across the […]

The FDIC is not accurately disclosing agency expenditures and spending information in compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act), according to a recent audit issued by the FDIC Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

The Department of Health and Human Services is looking for ways to combat stovepiped systems by using shared services across the agency for data management. “For us, data is front and center,” said Ed Simcox, deputy chief technology officer at HHS. […]

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is in the process of moving to a 100 percent cloud-enabled agency. “It’s a bit of a journey at the moment,” Walter Bigelow, chief of the IT systems management division in the Office of Science and Technology at ATF, said at MeriTalk and NetApp’s Cloud Connect. “We will see some solid benefits out of making this move.” […]

The innovations of the Internet of Things can only improve health care in rural America once there is complete broadband access and adoption. “The benefits of telehealth are not available to patients without access to high-speed Internet across America. As technology and health care services expand to meet patients where they live, broadband coverage must improve to make this care accessible,” Michael Adcock, executive director of the Telehealth Center University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. […]

In the event of a cyberattack, it’s important for information about the attack to be shared with the public in order to prevent further problems. Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, said that the agency shares timely, accurate information with its partners and constituents so that they can take proper action to protect themselves. […]

The May Cybersecurity Executive Order and the White House’s IT Modernization Report have encouraged agencies to look for ways to use shared services to improve cybersecurity. The Department of Justice has been looking into using shared services before the push from the White House, giving the agency a head start at shared services centered on cybersecurity for the enterprise. […]

Agency IT leaders said that Application Programming Interfaces have been essential in modernizing their legacy systems. Param Soni, deputy administrator and deputy director at the Department of Labor, said, “The goal is to always use existing services.” […]

Government agencies are trying to move beyond simply managing data to analyzing and using data to inform decisions. “We have a lot of information and that information needs to be tied together,” said Michael Peckham, Data Act Project Management Office executive director for Health and Human Services, at Software AG’s Innovation Tour on Nov. 2. […]

The Justice Department has evidence to charge six Russian government officials for involvement in the hack of the Democratic National Committee. U.S. authorities are considering charging the Russian officials to make it difficult for them to travel, but they are unlikely to be arrested and prosecuted in the U.S. […]

Tanium, along with its partner World Wide Technology, received a potential five-year, $750 million contract from the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), the Defense Department’s Silicon Valley outfit, to provide managed cybersecurity services to Federal agencies. […]

The Department of Commerce has made strides to manage the IT costs and oversight of new systems before the 2020 Census, after reports of poor oversight and planning. A Government Accountability Office report, released in October, found that the Census Bureau faced challenges in managing and overseeing the IT programs, systems, and contracts supporting the 2020 Census. […]

The Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program last week held its first data exchange between the Federal CDM dashboard and an agency dashboard. All of the CFO Federal agencies have agency dashboards to comply with the CDM program, and the Federal dashboard is in production. […]

The Department of Energy plans to roll out an enterprise risk management framework that would provide cybersecurity data about the agency in one place and enable better information sharing between departments.
“The enemy isn’t a hacker in the basement,” said Micah Czigan, director of the Integrated Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center for DOE. “The enemy is a world power nation-state.” […]

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that he is concerned about the Trump administration’s widespread adoption of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. “The NIST Framework has never been adequately validated,” he said, adding that he wonders whether agencies have accepted it because it’s effective or because “compliance demands so little effort.” […]

Representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google told Congress on Oct. 31 that they’ve had to learn how to combat nontraditional cyberattacks, like the spread of disinformation, rather than focusing on malware attacks alone to protect consumers. […]

As hospital chief information security officers report that their networks are under constant attempts at intrusion, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking a look at how medical devices can be used as access points into the larger networks. […]

Following a House hearing on the cyber workforce shortage, the Department of Homeland Security released information about cyber training programs. […]

The Department of Transportation announced the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program on Oct. 25, which is an initiative to safely test and validate advanced operations for drones in partnership with state and local governments. […]

Cybersecurity experts offered solutions to protect the U.S. electric grid, including moving the grid off of the public Internet, and using quantum encryption capabilities. “The nation’s electrical grid is a vital resource upon which our economy and our citizens’ daily lives depend,” said Richard Raines, director of the Electrical and Electronics Systems Research Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “It is also a system that is highly vulnerable to cyber intrusions as more and more utility controls and ‘smart’ technologies rely on public Internet connections.” […]

Agencies are looking at ways to secure the edge of their systems in order to support a more mobile workforce. “The edge is where the mission happens,” said Max Everett, CIO of the Department of Energy. “We’re in the midst of a transformation. It’s modernization with a plan.” […]

In order for agencies to meet Data Center Optimization Initiative requirements, many are choosing Data Center Infrastructure Management Solutions to help them visualize what’s going on inside their data centers. “We were looking at optimization before DCOI and DCIM was cool,” said Pruitt Hall, project manager for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s DCIM implementation. […]

Johnson Joy, CIO of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that he came to the Federal government hoping to use his private sector expertise to disrupt the public sector. “I’m a disruptor so I want to bring what the private sector has to offer to the government,” Joy said. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said that he almost turned down then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz when he asked him to head up the IT Subcommittee in his freshman year in Congress. But “my mama said don’t be a part of the problem, be part of the solution,” Hurd said at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Roadmap: Tomorrow’s Data Center in a Cloud-Driven Digital World event, produced by MeriTalk, on Oct. 24. […]

Many Federal agencies still struggle with overcoming security concerns when transitioning to the cloud, according to a MeriTalk report, To Cloud or Not to Cloud? That Isn’t the Question. Thirty-five percent of Federal IT leaders said that the security of their existing private cloud environments is excellent, compared to 21 percent for public cloud security. […]

The Department of Homeland Security published tips on Staying Safe in a ‘Smart’ World, which tells citizens how to navigate an environment full of the Internet of Things. […]

Jeff T.H. Pon, the nominee for director of the Office of Personnel Management, said that his top priority for the agency will be IT modernization. “Outside of work, Federal employees are able to access nearly any piece of information they need, from their bank accounts to student loans to car insurance, all on their phone,” he said. “We need to work toward providing the employees of the Federal government with the same conveniences with regards to their employment within the Federal government, with appropriate attention to information security.” […]

The Sunlight Foundation released a report that found that cities use Federal data to make strategic decisions including identifying local issues and informing policy decisions. The majority of cities began using Federal data more than a decade ago and 43 percent plan to increase their use of Federal data in the future. […]

The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) found that the agency’s IT leadership needs to address the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and cybersecurity threats. […]