While the steady performance of most large Federal agencies on the latest version of the FITARA Scorecard drew notes of praise from leaders of the House Government Operations Subcommittee at their July 28 hearing to review the grades, the central focus on the hearing – cybersecurity and IT modernization – got the most attention from private sector tech leaders. […]

While progress in modernizing government technology is one of the overarching themes of the bi-annual FITARA scorecard issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, an official from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified on July 28 that the Federal government still spends over 60 percent of IT spending on maintaining legacy systems. […]

Senate negotiators have reached a deal on the legislative language for the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure package, the White House announced today, and a vote could come as soon as tonight. […]

The Biden Administration views the future of 5G telecommunications as a key national security issue and a “transformative” technology, Anne Neuberger said today. […]

As the number of cyberattacks impacting critical infrastructure continues to grow, members of Congress and representatives from the Department of Energy (DoE), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed that more needs to be done to protect the electric grid from a potentially “devastating” cyberattack. […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are seeking input on the implementation plan for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), according to a request for information (RFI) posted to the Federal register. […]

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology approved four technology and innovation-related bills by voice vote during a markup session on July 27. The committee’s vote sends these four bills to the House floor for further consideration. […]

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a Joint Cyber Planning Office (JCPO), and an official from DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told Congress today the unit will soon launch the effort. […]

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today that the agency’s $2.1 billion cybersecurity budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 is “critical” to the agency’s mission of protecting the United States.  […]

The Access Board is looking for a contractor to help the agency move to a new electronic records management system and provide ongoing operation and maintenance, according to a request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov. […]

A bipartisan group of House Oversight and Reform Committee leadership is urging the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to seek money from the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) to help deal with a backlog of about 500,000 records requests from veterans who need the information from NARA’s National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to receive benefits. […]

Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., has filed companion legislation in the House to a Senate bill introduced in June that would invest $30 billion in deferred maintenance projects and infrastructure improvements at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) network of National Labs. […]

The Department of Energy (DoE) has released an updated version of its Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) with updates to address the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, DoE’s Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) unit announced July 21. […]

A State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that the agency lacks integrated financial management and procurement IT systems to support efficient contracting operations and a knowledge management strategy to efficiently store and retrieve essential information. […]

The House of Representatives passed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Capabilities Enhancement Act on July 20, and the bill now has bipartisan companion legislation in the Senate. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) unveiled its outside the continental United States (OCONUS) cloud strategy last month, which strives to enable an all-domain advantage for international operations through cloud innovation. Officials from DoD and Rackspace Government Solutions stopped by MeriTalk’s Cloud Café July 15 to talk about OCONUS and the benefits and challenges to cloud modernization. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said on June 22 it completed its markup of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes a $1 billion increase in funds for programs developing AI, microelectronics, advanced materials, 5G, and biotechnology. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is considering an open-source registrar platform for the .gov domain, according to a new request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov. […]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not always protected Mobile Passport Control (MPC) applications from cybersecurity threats, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate July 21 would require Federal agencies, government contractors, and critical infrastructure owners and operators to report cyber intrusions within 24 hours of discovery. […]

The House of Representatives on July 20 voted to approve the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act July as part of a slate of cyber bills that passed under suspension of normal rules. The bill would create a $500 million-per-year grant program run by the Department of Homeland Security to help state and local governments improve their cybersecurity. […]

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously approved six cybersecurity and supply chain-related bills during a markup session on July 21. The committee’s vote sends these bills to the House floor for further consideration. […]

When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began moving to the cloud in 2014, much of the agency’s cloud movement was “lift and shift” – simply moving workloads as-is to the cloud. Over time, IT staff trained themselves on cloud operations and began to take greater advantage of the flexibility and scalability that cloud computing offers. […]

Department of Defense (DoD) Deputy CIO Cynthia Medoza shared her most important guiding principles to advancing the DoD enterprise, which she dubbed as getting back to the basics. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee on July 20 approved and sent to the full House for consideration several bills with Federal tech implications, including measures dealing with artificial intelligence oversight, and Federal hiring for several classes of technology positions. […]

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is requesting information from the private sector on how it might improve the way social media data is collected and archived from previous presidential administrations, according to a request for information (RFI) posted on the SAM.gov website. […]

The House of Representatives approved a bill July 19 that aims to improve electric power grid infrastructure cybersecurity by using public-private partnerships. The bill was passed by voice vote under suspension of the rules. […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today issued a second Security Directive aimed at securing critical pipelines that transport hazardous liquids and natural gas from cyber intrusions, in response to recent cybersecurity threats against U.S. pipeline systems. […]

A senior Biden administration official said on July 18 that an important mandate under the administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order – deployment of multifactor authentication and encryption technologies across Federal civilian networks – could be “fully deployed within six months.” […]

Without a secure, reliable, and trustworthy digital identity system for people, entities, and things, the increasingly digital new reality is vulnerable to attacks, threatening individual safety and national security. […]