The General Services Administration (GSA) has released a new draft of its Polaris Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) on Dec. 31, 2020 and is seeking feedback from the small business IT community by the end of the month, according to an RFP posted on beta.SAM.gov. […]

After being excluded from the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the 117th Congress made the Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program (FedRAMP) Authorization Act one of the first bills passed in the House, passing by voice vote today. […]

The United States Postal Service (USPS) did not do enough to ensure that some of its main IT contracts were well-managed and remained competitive, bringing spending under the contract into question, according to a report from the USPS Office of Inspector General. […]

The U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) is in the planning stages of creating a software development wing of the Army that would reduce its reliance on vendor software. AFC put out a call for white papers on Dec. 28 which they will use to invite vendors to submit prototypes and, later, award a contract by March of this year, according to the Federal government’s beta.SAM.gov website. […]

A Treasury Department official told House Ways and Means Committee members in a Dec. 23 letter that the agency has found no evidence that the suspected Russia-backed breach of Federal government systems via SolarWinds Orion products exposed U.S. taxpayer data. […]

With one of the most abnormal years of our lifetimes coming to an end, we look back at the top Fed IT moments of 2020. In a year with both a pandemic and an election, the government had to change the way it worked, ensure trust in election outcomes, and modernize on the fly. […]

With 2020 nearly in the rearview mirror, we surveyed the office to find everyone’s silver linings of the pandemic. From ditching the morning commute to logging more quality time with loved ones, we’ve done our best to make lemonade out of lemons. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) Prototypes and Experiments office is looking for submissions ahead of a solutions meeting that the office expects to hold in late spring 2021, according to a Dec. 22 release. […]

A bill introduced on Dec. 11 by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would require Federal agencies to report to Congress within seven days about any cyber attacks they have faced that would cause significant harm to national security or agency operations. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO)has reviewed several Department of Defense (DoD) information technology programs and found that the agency’s IT development approaches and cybersecurity practices may be impacting cost and scheduling. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has outlined technical and policy options for creating database resources that can be used to identify chemical “fingerprints” and help investigators track down the sources of chemical weapon agents used in attacks. […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a draft version of Special Publication (SP) 800-213 and several supporting documents aimed at manufacturers, with the goal of establishing a baseline for securely integrating Internet of Things (IoT) devices into Federal networks. […]

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) and Project Management Institute (PMI) released a new report today on how to build a more agile Federal government, and provided five recommendations for how government can move in that direction. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a draft version of guidance that will further help agencies report cloud-security data to the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS), giving CISA the needed visibility to track network traffic amid increasing cloud migrations. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is due to receive a much-needed funding increase for Fiscal Year 2021, helping to address a shortfall for the program that aims to improve network security at Federal government civilian agencies. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a draft version of a Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) Use Case focusing on access for remote users and user-owned mobile devices, setting the stage for more direct network access to agency and cloud-based resources. […]

On Dec. 15, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) flew with artificial intelligence (AI) as a working aircrew member on a military aircraft for the first time. The AI algorithm – known as ARTUµ –  flew on a U-2 Dragon Lady with Maj. “Vudu” on a test flight that “was the result of years of concerted […]

After months with no movement and a weekend full of deal-making, Congress is expected to pass a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package as part of a broader Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) omnibus spending bill. The relief includes a new round of Payment Protection Program (PPP) funding, money for broadband deployment and emergency use, and money to remove banned Huawei and ZTE equipment. […]

The National Security Agency (NSA) late last week released new guidance on cloud security to defend against cyber threats that manipulate authentication environments. […]

A new survey released by MeriTalk and Splunk finds that public sector IT decision makers are increasingly planning around zero trust security concepts, with that thinking driven by current and future requirements for telework capabilities, among other security management needs. However, agencies face challenges in migrating to zero trust, including the need to invest in foundational technologies, according to findings from the survey of 150 Federal IT decision makers and 150 state, local, and higher education (SLED) IT decisionmakers on their agencies’ efforts around zero trust. […]

Malicious actors are targeting K-12 schools with a strong increase in ransomware attacks and other cyber threats, according to a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory released December 10 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is well on its way towards its goal to move substantially to the cloud by 2024, with over 100 apps already migrated and expanded telehealth efforts leveraging cloud services, said James Gfrerer, VA CIO, during a MeriTalk webinar on Dec. 16. […]

The U.S. Air Force aims to modernize legacy systems built on COBOL and other legacy coding languages in the mid 1980’s to early 1990’s, with the intention of converting the code and moving the system into a cloud environment, according to a request for information (RFI) released by the service branch. […]

Senior House Republicans pointed today to the still-unfolding situation on Russian-backed hacking of government networks via SolarWinds software to call for passage of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the cybersecurity elements that the legislation features. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report that four Federal agencies it examined are making progress on establishing data governance policies, but still have more work to do on some key milestones including assessing data and infrastructure maturity, and staff data literacy. […]

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) component have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on cybersecurity measures, according to a Dec. 17 announcement. […]

Data analytics has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of society. Its practical applications include improving cybersecurity, preparing for natural disasters, reducing crime, allocating healthcare resources where they are needed most, responding to staffing challenges, and ensuring food safety. Agencies that successfully integrate and analyze data across business units are able to make faster and better decisions that ultimately improve citizens’ lives. […]

The Alliance for Digital Innovation (ADI), a Washington-based trade group known for its advocacy for Federal government IT modernization, released a new set of recommendations Dec. 17 for the Biden administration and incoming Congress to improve Federal tech capabilities by learning from some of the lessons of the government’s rapid turn to telework during the coronavirus pandemic. […]

President-elect Joe Biden confirmed late on Dec. 17 he intends to nominate former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as the new Secretary of Energy. If confirmed, she will head an agency primarily concerned with nuclear energy and domestic energy production, but also a dazzling range of science and technology research and development activities through the Energy Department’s (DoE) National Laboratories. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned today that threats to government networks caused by previously reported breaches of SolarWinds Orion products pose a “grave risk” to Federal government, state, tribal and territorial governments, critical infrastructure entities, and other private-sector organizations. […]