Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
Kshemendra Paul, cloud action officer for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chief information officer, said Wednesday at MeriTalk’s 2018 Cloud Computing Brainstorm that while DHS has yet to establish the concrete business value of cloud migration, the financial benefits are just one piece of the puzzle in proving cloud’s worth to the agency. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee today approved H.R. 5733, the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] Industrial Control Systems Capabilities Enhancement Act of 2018, that would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to give DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) the responsibility to maintain capabilities to identify threats to industrial control systems (ICS). […]
Tony Scott was the Federal government’s third chief information officer, serving the nation in that role from 2015 through early 2017. During his time at the helm of government-wide IT, Scott led the development of 2016’s State of Federal IT Report, which left a lasting roadmap for modernization progress in the Federal government. […]
The digital transformation in government IT is driving modernization but also expanding the attack surface Federal agencies have to protect. The traditional perimeter no longer exists. Today, there is no “inside” or “outside” the network when it comes to detecting, defending, and deterring cyber attacks. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
Two research directors from IT advisory firm Gartner said today that sophisticated cyber attacks are likely to remain a permanent feature of the IT landscape because of their enduring ability to provide attackers with outsized monetary, social, and political payoffs. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) on Monday released its semiannual report to Congress, and outside of recurring calls for better cyber threat information sharing, improvements to identity access management, and concerns about U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) IT acquisitions, the report appears to be free of major IT red alerts within the agency. The report covers the period from October 2017 to March 2018. […]
The Federal government is making steady progress in adopting a key anti-phishing email security protocol, installing it on systems more quickly than organizations in other sectors, if a little behind a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deadline. […]
A report issued May 31 by the New America Foundation’s Cybersecurity Initiative recommends that the Federal government consider three “priority efforts” to help state governments advance their own efforts to improve cybersecurity, including “designating specific cybersecurity funding that is linked to national priorities.” […]
With the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) formally signing on last month to adopt the same electronic health records system as the Department of Defense (DoD), the two agencies are putting a lot of chips on a solution to a problem that history suggests is pretty risky. […]
We’re witnessing momentous developments in government technology. The Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act promises new incentives for agencies that can prove they’re maximizing government funds to bring about IT transformation. […]
Agencies need to leverage digital recruiting initiatives and enhanced data techniques to better attract talented and diverse personnel, according to human relations professionals at several Federal agencies speaking at a FedInsider webinar held May 31. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
Following the release of a report to President Trump on the increasing threat of botnets, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Thursday that the government is not doing enough to force the private sector to build better security into Internet of Things (IoT) devices. […]
The State Department on Thursday announced its vision for U.S. cyberspace policy based on articulated deterrents to criminal cyberattacks, protection of an open Internet, and international engagement and collaboration to achieve those goals, according to the summaries of two reports to President Trump authorized by the Cyber Executive Order (EO) of May 2017. […]
We sat down with Jeff Henry, president of ViON, in his office in Herndon, Va. The typical tech provider surroundings belied the epic changes at ViON, as it morphs from leading data center reseller to delivering government IT modernization as a service. […]
It’s probably not a shocking revelation to learn that Federal IT managers are less than happy with their agency’s IT infrastructure. Their biggest gripes, according to a recent MeriTalk survey are that it’s 1) expensive, 2) difficult to manage, and 3) inefficient. Small wonder then that the same survey found that nearly all of those who participated—92 percent of 150 Federal IT managers—were frustrated with the state of their infrastructure. […]
We are happy to present the inaugural edition of MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), passed by Congress in December 2014, represented the first major legislative overhaul of Federal IT in nearly 20 years. Beginning in November 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two scorecards a year grading agencies’ performance under the law. Suffice to say, agencies haven’t always been making the GAO’s Honor Roll, with plenty of Cs and Ds to go around. However, many agencies have made significant improvements over the last 3 years. […]
The current cybersecurity workforce shortage in the United States is daunting and only due to get worse over the next few years, the Departments of Commerce (DoC) and Homeland Security (DHS) reported to President Trump in a document released Wednesday. […]
If somebody embodies a can-do, refreshing attitude in government IT, that person is Darryl Peek, the digital innovation evangelist at DHS. Sadly for Uncle Sam and luckily for Salesforce, Peek is leaving government and signing on with Casey Coleman’s all-star team at the cloud leader. […]
Military users will soon see a tenfold boost in the Department of Defense’s telecommunications network, in a move that will support the service’s combatant commands, the Joint Information Environment (JIE), and in the process, DoD’s push toward commercial cloud services. […]
A new report from the Departments of Commerce (DoC) and Homeland Security (DHS) suggests that the proliferation of botnets and the automated, distributed cyber attacks they generate will cause greater problems for Federal agencies absent a robust government response to the problem that includes a proper mix of funding, policies, and public-private collaboration. […]
A group of 19 Democratic senators today urged John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, to reverse course on his decision earlier this month to eliminate the White House cybersecurity coordinator position. […]
A new White House report says three quarters of Federal agencies are not managing their cybersecurity risk correctly and are consequently at “risk or high risk” of data theft or network intrusion due to poor cybersecurity programs. […]
The U.S. Cyber Command is ready for its close-up. The command announced May 17 that all 133 of its Cyber Mission Teams are fully operational, capping a roughly one-month stretch that saw the arrival of a new commander, the opening of a new operations center, and the official designation of Cybercom as a full unified combatant command. […]
The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) IT subcommittee followed up last week’s release of the sixth FITARA Scorecard (Scorecard 6.0) by releasing a second, more detailed scorecard. It provides insight into each of the categories of FITARA scoring, with methodology, metrics, calculations, and detailed data points on just how well each of the 24 agencies fared. […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is leaving millions of dollars on the table and putting sensitive information at risk, according to the agency Inspector General’s (IG) Semiannual Report to Congress. The report, released today, highlights 114 recommendations from the IG that EPA has yet to implement, with the IG saying the monetary benefits of the unimplemented recommendations total $860 million. […]
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said the agency needs to improve in two key legislative areas related to IT management, according to OIG’s semiannual report released Tuesday and covering October 2017 through March 2018. […]