Federal CIO Clare Martorana urged government technology leaders this week to take a page from the “Undercover Boss” television program and discover first-hand the experiences and viewpoints of their customers in order to better understand where government needs to make improvements in how citizens best interact with government services. […]

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) recently released a request for proposals (RFP) for access to commercial satellite imagery from U.S based companies. […]

The Federal Communications Commission announced today that it will commit more than $421 million in the latest round of funding for the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), bringing total program commitments to over $3.05 billion and 10 million students connected. […]

Bipartisan legislation introduced last week directs the Department of Defense (DoD) to make its datasets publicly and easily accessible via a strategic pilot program in order to advance software and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities beyond the Pentagon. […]

After more than two months of angling and dealmaking, the House of Representatives voted to approve the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework – on November 5, sending the bill along with its $2 billion in cyber funding and $65 billion in broadband appropriations to President Biden’s desk for final approval. […]

Richard Grabowski, acting program manager for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, explained at a November 4 event organized by FCW that new memoranda of understanding (MOA) that the program has been signing with Federal agencies are a key component to enabling better cyber threat hunting by CISA across agency networks. […]

The House of Representatives is expected to hold votes on its fiscal year (FY) 2022 reconciliation package – known as the Build Back Better Act (BBB) – as well as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) – today after the House Rules Committee finalized a rule for debate on the now $1.75 trillion “soft” infrastructure legislation late on Nov. 4. […]

With an estimated 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure controlled by private entities – and with many of those failing to practice basic cyber hygiene – witnesses told House lawmakers at a November 4 hearing that the time may be ripe for mandatory cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure operators. […]

Federal agencies as a group are “close” to completing work to put in place the first two of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program’s four key capabilities, said Betsy Kulik, senior advisor for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) CDM program, at a November 4 online event organized by FCW. […]

The cybersecurity threats that have prompted wide-scale action to improve security across the Federal government are posing equal dangers to state and local governments, and officials said at FCW’s CDM Summit virtual event on November 4 that the same solutions being put into place by the Feds also are scalable and adaptable by state and local governments. […]

A group of Republican senators sent a letter to White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients asking him to inform Congress how the Biden Administration plans to address data collection concerns following a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contact tracing order. […]

While several aspects in the electoral system may be at risk, election officials at the Federal and state level agreed that cyberthreats have routinely and at larger numbers attacked voters’ confidence in the system with the spread of misinformation. […]

After a lengthy review process, the Department of Defense today issued an update to its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program – dubbed CMMC 2.0 – that will simplify some of the cybersecurity requirements for contractors in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) looking to do business with the government. […]

As high-profile ransomware and other cyberattacks have spiked over the past year, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is working to prevent and mitigate against them by leveraging capabilities from the Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation (CDM) program, and working with organizations including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – which runs the CDM program – and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted today to approve and send to the full Senate for consideration 11 pieces of legislation, including several related to artificial intelligence, the  cybersecurity workforce, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). […]

While President Biden’s executive order (EO) on improving the nation’s cybersecurity and the follow-on guidance from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) represent critical steps forward in protecting the U.S. against the increasing volume and dangers of cyber-attacks, Federal agency officials said during an ATARC webinar on November 2 that the directives also present challenges that may require flexibility in their execution. […]

Despite a general cyber workforce shortage, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis today said his office has a “robust pipeline of talent” and expects to have 25 employees staffed in his office by the end of December, once Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 appropriations are released. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today issued a Binding Operational Directive (BOD) to significantly boost the nation’s cyber hygiene by creating a catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities and forcing Federal agencies to remediate them. […]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launches a new initiative to ensure artificial intelligence-enabled technology used in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions abide by Federal civil rights laws. […]

The Intelligence and National Security Alliance – a trade group for the intel and national security communities – is arguing in a new white paper that United States space systems should be classified by the Federal government as critical infrastructure. […]

In the campaign to help combat violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women in the U.S., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that better efforts to create and analyze case data in Federal databases are necessary to better understand the full extent of the crisis and work to alleviate it. […]

The Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building submitted its first-year report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), pursuant to the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, detailing its findings and making a list of recommendations including establishing a permanent Federal Chief Statistician role to help improve agency data use. […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released draft criteria for consumer software cybersecurity labeling, as mandated by the Biden administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order. […]

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has a strong information security maturation, with an overall grade of 4 on a 5-point scale, but still has “significant security control weaknesses,” according to a recent audit of its information security practices released by the FDIC Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is lending some backing to protest by Microsoft of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) $10 billion cloud award to Amazon Web Services (AWS) earlier this year. […]

A trio of Republican senators is seeking information from the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) about its process for developing the two pipeline security directives it issued this summer, according to an Oct. 28 letter sent to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) Joseph Cuffari. […]

Cloud security provider Zscaler said that its Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) service has received a provisional authorization to operate at Impact Level 5 as published in the Defense Department’s Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide. […]

John Sherman, who has served as Acting CIO for the Department of Defense (DoD) and is the nominee to move into the position permanently, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee at a confirmation hearing on October 28 that he wants to put in place a new strategy to develop DoD cyber talent, among other steps if his nomination is confirmed. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened the filing window for the $1.9 billion Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. In September, the FCC announced that the filing window would run from Oct. 29 to Jan. 14, 2022. […]

The Secure Equipment Act has now cleared both the House and Senate, and is expected to land on President Biden’s desk for his signature shortly. […]