The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has appointed Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman as CISA’s Senior Election Security Lead. […]
An official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is applauding the work of a private cybersecurity firm that, in collaboration with CISA, helped victims of the BlackMatter ransomware group, according to a new report from the New York Times. […]
The Office of Management and Budget has released a 2021 action plan for Federal agencies to make progress on a list of goals under the Federal Data Strategy published in 2019, but given there are little more than two months to go in 2021, OMB characterized the year-end goals as “aspirational.” […]
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) announced that it will prioritize industry outreach efforts in U.S. technology sectors as they relate to economic and national security, including tech-heavy areas such as AI, bio-economy, autonomous systems, quantum information science and technology, and semiconductors. […]
The White House appointed Jonah Force Hill, a longtime cyber advisor and strategist, to become the National Security Council’s (NSC) Director of Cybersecurity and Emerging Tech Policy, according to Hill’s LinkedIn. […]
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Thune, R-S.D., have introduced a bill to create a new council that would oversee Federal investments and policy development of next-generation communications technology including sixth-generation – or 6G – wireless tech. […]
The Defense Department’s (DoD) information system for tracking capability documents that identify new or enhanced capabilities in weapon systems doesn’t have reliable data on how many programs have gone through a revised process. […]
The House of Representatives passed the DHS Software Supply Chain Risk Management Act of 2021 this week with a 412-2 vote. […]
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, introduced a bill Oct. 21 that would look to better secure and protect the data that Federal contractors collect when using artificial intelligence (AI) and make clear that the government is the ultimate owner of contractor-collected AI data. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized $554 million for broadband deployment through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. […]
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on development of quantum information technologies covers the general waterfront on the current status of the technologies, but notes that development of game-changing systems are probably still ten years and billions of dollars of further investments away. […]
Dr. Laurie Locascio, the White House’s nominee to be the next director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), told senators this week that she will prioritize cybersecurity of internet of things (IoT) devices, and bridging the cyber workforce gap if she is confirmed to head the agency. […]
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, are pressing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to figure out a fix for the backlog of records requests at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), and suggested IT upgrades as a possible solution. […]
Nickolas Guertin, who President Biden nominated to be the Department of Defense’s (DoD) next director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), sees testing for cyber threats and building cyber testing into the test and evaluation process a priority for the next DOT&E. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken on a number of recent initiatives to build a diverse cyber workforce, which DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly outlined today during the third week of the CISA Cybersecurity Summit. […]
Data experts Eileen Vidrine, chief data officer (CDO) at the U.S. Air Force, and Jeremy Wilson, multi-factor authentication statewide program manager for the State of Texas, gathered on Oct. 19 at the Dell Technologies North America Forum to share their insights on data protection measures and the importance of keeping data secure. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced today that it has awarded $2 million to bring cybersecurity training programs to rural communities and diverse populations. […]
Government agencies continue to modernize IT environments putting data to work for employees, citizens, and the warfighter. During a webinar hosted by Dell Technologies on Oct 19, Federal chief intelligence officers (CIOs) shared best practices for selecting the right infrastructure for high-value workloads.
The Senate Appropriations Committee released the remaining nine fiscal year (FY) 2022 funding bills and included various funding bumps for cybersecurity, as well as funding for artificial intelligence (AI) and microchip development programs. […]
The Senate Appropriations Committee released nine appropriations bills for fiscal year (FY) 2022 on October 18 including a Homeland Security funding bill that would give the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) a 30 percent budget increase over FY2021 levels, to $2.638 billion. […]
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said today that the Pentagon, as well as the rest of the Federal government, needs to adopt a problem-solving mindset in order to succeed in innovation in a rapidly changing technological landscape. […]
Agency (CISA) provides insight into what Federal buyers will be looking for in technology central to the Biden-Harris administration’s network visibility-focused cybersecurity executive order, specifically on network endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will hold a listening session for Tribal leaders, staff, and outreach partners to inform participants about the commission’s efforts to increase Tribal libraries’ participation in the E-Rate Program. […]
The emergence of adversarial artificial intelligence (AI) requires special attention. AI users need to understand the threat space and organize responsible AI mitigations, said Pamela Isom, director of the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO) at the Department of Energy (DoE), on Oct. 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]
The Defense Digital Service (DDS) is repurposing its automated background investigations prototype to focus on insider threats, which includes a name change from the System for Automated Background Evaluation and Review (SABER) to the System for Insider Threat Hindrance (SITH). […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the DoD, is working on an artificial intelligence project that goes beyond the simple augmentation of work process and is focusing on the symbiosis of human and machine, according to a DARPA official. […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) has wholly transformed the way employees are recruited, hired, trained, evaluated, and even fired. However, employers must find the right division of labor between AI and human resources personnel between using AI to improve human decision-making and delegating decision-making entirely to algorithms, said Keith Sonderling, commissioner for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), on Oct 18 at the AI World virtual summit. […]
The Treasury Department released a new report that found ransomware victims paid $590 million during the first six months of 2021, which is more than the value reported for the entirety of 2020 ($416 million). […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint advisory on Oct. 18 warning organizations that the BlackMatter ransomware group is targeting U.S. critical infrastructure entities. […]
In the new era of cyber defense, Ted Okada, chief technology officer (CTO) at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), stressed that IT leaders must take the right risks to lead their teams in risk management efforts. […]