Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

Incorporating automation into the U.S. electric grid can both improve recovery capabilities in the event of an outage and present new cybersecurity dangers, according to a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report. […]

Lawmakers should ensure law enforcement agencies can gain lawful access to information to protect their citizens and uphold U.S. laws, but without putting companies and workers at a disadvantage, according to a report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. […]

Cybersecurity considerations for both government and industry have to include leadership, supply chains, mobility, and other components in order to be effective, according to experts who spoke at PCM-G’s Mission First event. […]

Federal agencies that amass multitudes of data because of drone use have had to think about how to store and protect that data. Agencies that use drones are caught between following the regulations in place for aircraft and following the regulations for IT systems, since drones contain properties of both categories. […]

On Aug. 2, experts from the public and private sectors will discuss Federal big data management master strategies, the evolution of big data leadership, and the impact of big data on agency modernization efforts. […]

The House Homeland Security Committee on July 26 unanimously passed two bills to improve the government’s cybersecurity posture: the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2017 and the Cyber Vulnerability Disclosure Reporting Act. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act creates a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deal with […]

cyber insurance

Despite the relatively new nature of cyber insurance policies, small businesses are finding value in their offerings, according to witnesses who testified before the House Small Business Committee on July 26. “It affords me the knowledge that if we were hacked, protective steps have been taken to address any potential damages to the company and my employees,”said Robert Luft, president of SureFire Innovations. […]

Congress should focus on providing Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) with technology to patrol the border and detect illegal smuggling, rather than building a physical barrier across the whole southern U.S. border, according to Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas. […]

Federal leaders emphasized the importance of cybersecurity and partnerships with the private sector at the Aspen Security Forum on July 22. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said he agrees with the decision of former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson that made election systems critical infrastructure and told the states that DHS would offer help if […]

State and Federal representatives testified to the need for a first responder-only network and offered their support of FirstNet’s efforts during a recent Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing. […]

IBM released its new mainframe, IBM z14, which offers encryption for 100 percent of user data and achieves the highest level of government security standards currently on the market. The mainframe will be made available in mid-September and IBM is working with the Federal government to integrate this technology into its IT strategies. […]

The Department of Justice announced on July 20 that it was recently able to take down dark website AlphaBay and its administrator. The action was in conjunction with Europol as well as law enforcement authorities in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. […]

If Federal agencies invest upfront in technologies to track fraud and improper payments, the government could end up saving enough money to pay back some of the national debt or stave off sequestration, according to Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. […]

BlackBerry announced the expansion of its public sector cybersecurity offerings to include SecuSUITE for Government, which provides end-to-end encryption of calls and texts and supports iOS, Android, and BlackBerry 10 smartphones and tablets. […]

CCX Meeting

To score a home run, you have to cover all the bases. But getting from start to finish is harder than it looks. For Federal agencies, hitting IT out of the park is even more difficult due to budget constraints, lengthy procurement processes, and staffing difficulties. And, as agencies continue to spend 79 percent of IT budgets – or $62 billion annually – on legacy systems, the window for innovation decreases every day. So how can agencies stay ahead of the curve? […]

The White House is celebrating Made in America Week, while many U.S.-based technology companies advocate for H-1B visas to sponsor foreign workers who engineer some of the nation’s most lucrative technology products. […]

The State Department’s cyber coordinator will be stepping down at the end of this month, according to reports from Politico. Chris Painter has been creating a strategic framework for cybersecurity during peacetime and gaining support from other countries. […]

More than one-third of the Small Business Administration’s 120 circuits are overloaded. To resolve this issue, chief information officer Maria Roat plans to modernize SBA’s infrastructure by moving to a “pure Ethernet backbone.” She said Ethernet will help employees with Skype and virtual counseling, and will extend to all of the agency’s field offices. […]

CCX Meeting

The pressure is on for agencies to make the move to cloud – just 13 percent of Feds say they can deploy new systems as fast as required. However, agencies know cloud is here to stay.  When it comes down to it, Feds are optimistic – 70 percent say increasing their cloud adoption pace will improve IT’s ability to innovate. That said, flying through the cloud procurement process is no easy feat. Making the cloud move is proving to be more complex than expected – but with the right planning and strategic moves, Feds can ensure they undergo a surprise-free move. […]

The secret to the Small Business Administration’s success in going from cloud launch to receiving an authority to operate (ATO) in less than three months was to burn the bridge back to the old way of doing things and commit completely to cloud migration, according to SBA Deputy CIO Guy Cavallo and CTO Sanjay Gupta. […]

The Federal Acquisition Regulation, the guidelines dictating how Federal agencies procure goods and services, is not flexible enough to keep pace with modernizing agencies, according to Jennifer Hoover, DevOps program manager for the Transportation Security Administration. […]

Cloud helps organizations focus on the important parts of their mission, rather than wasting their time on maintenance and compliance, according to Peter Cutts, senior vice president of hybrid cloud platforms at Dell EMC. […]

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