President Biden signed into law on Dec. 27 the Strengthening VA Cybersecurity Act of 2022, which requires the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to obtain an independent cybersecurity assessment of its most critical information systems, as well as its cyber posture as a whole. […]
President Biden on Dec. 27, 2022, signed into law the Small Business Cyber Training Act, which requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to boost its ability to provide cyber planning training, and be more proactive in protecting data and requiring greater transparency of threats and breaches that occur. […]
Technology suppliers to the Federal government are telling MeriTalk that they expect to see Federal agencies place increasing emphasis on IT modernization efforts in 2023, along with continuing efforts to boost cybersecurity protections that modernized systems can help to achieve. […]
From ensuring the nation’s voting infrastructure was secure in preparation for election season to developing strategies and goals to support critical infrastructure owners and operators, boosting the nation’s cyber posture was among many Federal agencies’ top priorities for 2022. […]
The new year in cybersecurity is likely to feature at least one old problem – shortages of skilled cyber professionals – but also progress in areas like zero trust security, cloud adoption, and continued adoption of enterprise IT approaches. […]
Cloud security provider Zscaler said this week that it has joined the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), which was created last year by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to unify the efforts of cyber defenders from organizations around the world. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has several initiatives underway to help U.S. critical infrastructure providers reduce risks – with partnerships between the public and private sectors positioned as the key to ensuring success of those initiatives, an agency official said this week. […]
President Biden today signed into law legislation to set the Federal government on the path to defending against quantum computing-enabled data breaches that will become more of a threat as quantum tech advances in the coming years. […]
One of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) mainstay cybersecurity protection programs got an extended lease on life, along with $91 million of funding, in the fiscal year (FY) 2023 omnibus appropriations bill released by the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Dec. 20. […]
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is looking to industry for insight into how the agency can develop an overarching cloud-based enterprise management system capable of automating its data collection and dissemination, according to a request for information (RFI) issued Dec. 12. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is in line to receive a 12 percent funding increase under Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations legislation unveiled today – a spending hike that Capitol Hill leaders said will help the agency boost its ability to prevent cyberattacks and secure critical infrastructure. […]
The Federal government remains largely unprepared to implement “accelerating technology trends most likely to cause disruption over the next 18 to 24 months,” a new report from Deloitte says. […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is responding to a data breach at Healthcare Management Solutions, LLC (HMS) – a subcontractor to CMS – that may have exposed personally identifiable information of up to 254,000 Medicare beneficiaries. […]
Widespread use of telehealth services proved their worth during the COVID-19 pandemic, and health experts and lawmakers are considering implementing telehealth provisions on a more permanent basis as they look beyond the pandemic, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said during a Dec. 14 Axios webinar. […]
The Department of the Air Force (USAF) wants to become a “cloud-first” agency and is committed to making continued investments in cloud computing and migration, according to USAF Chief Technology Officer Jay Bonci. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released a new “progress report” on the state of cybersecurity across Federal agencies, just in time for the 15th edition of the FITARA Scorecard issued today by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. […]
To help fend off ever-increasing cyberattacks, Splunk is helping organizations to build a foundation of cyber resilience so they can have visibility into cyber threats, accelerate operations, and meet their mission. […]
President Biden has appointed 15 leaders in the quantum information science (QIS) field from industry, academia, and Federal laboratories to serve on the inaugural presidential National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee (NQIAC), according to a Dec. 9 White House press release. […]
The Senate on Dec. 9 unanimously approved legislation passed earlier this year by the House that helps to set the Federal government on the path to defend against quantum computing-enabled data breaches that will become more of a threat as quantum tech advances in the coming years. […]
The private and public sectors are coming together to beat back bad actors, and that public-private partnership is something that cybersecurity experts on Dec. 8 said is “vital” to better protect data across the board. […]
The Federal government continues to invest heavily in quantum computing research to ensure the United States becomes the global innovation leader in this emerging discipline, however, the technology for applications is still largely unavailable as quantum research remains in the early stages, according to Federal quantum experts. […]
A new report from cloud security provider Zscaler titled The State of Zero Trust Transformation 2023 report finds that more than 90 percent of IT leaders surveyed are implementing zero trust architecture I connection with their cloud migration strategy over the next 12 months. […]
The four vendors selected for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) program – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, and Oracle – will duke it out for task orders beginning in about two weeks, DoD leaders told reporters during a Dec. 8 press briefing. […]
Tim Persons, founder of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Innovation Lab, said the government watchdog agency is currently working on building distributed ledger technology (DLT) to more efficiently deliver on the agency’s mission. […]
The House on Dec. 7 unanimously voted to pass legislation that requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to improve its cyber defenses; the bill now heads to President Biden’s desk for his signature. […]
During the closing keynote speech at MeriTalk’s Dec. 8 “New & Next: The Government Tech Renaissance,” event in Washington, D.C., a top IT official at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said agencies need to take care of their employees first when it comes to implementing good customer experience (CX). […]
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is working on legislation for next year that would create a chief design officer for the Federal government, he said today at MeriTalk’s “New & Next: The Government Tech Renaissance,” event in Washington, D.C. […]
The Defense Department said late today that it has awarded Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) cloud contracts to the four bidders that have been in the mix for sizable chunks of the contract since the beginning of the process – Amazon Web Services, Google Support Services, Microsoft, and Oracle. […]
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill released by the House Rules Committee late Tuesday evening features numerous provisions designed to bolster cyber capabilities and operations not only at the Defense Department (DoD), but at other Federal agencies as well. […]
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly wants the agency’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CSAC) to stand up a new subcommittee focused on corporate cyber responsibility as part of a move to build a cyber “civil defense” capacity. […]