The Biden administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order (Cyber EO) issued in May 2021 marks the Federal government’s most determined effort yet to not only propose – but also to enforce through sustained government-wide action – the kinds of fundamental changes needed to advance civilian agency cybersecurity, defeat sophisticated attacks on government networks, and in the process, take a giant leap forward in the cause of IT modernization. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pushed back the timeline for awards under its $10 billion contract for small business IT hardware, software, and managed services, and now expects to make awards in August 2022. […]
The Senate late last week confirmed President Biden’s nominee Robert Santos to be the next director of the U.S. Census Bureau. […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued a request for information (RFI) seeking feedback on centers of excellence for personal protective technology (PPT), which includes personal protective equipment (PPE). […]
Every government agency is loaded with data that it could use to fulfill its mission more efficiently and effectively. But getting from here to there isn’t necessarily an easy proposition. Business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions can help. […]
Teddra Burgess, senior vice president Public Sector at cybersecurity technology provider Tanium, is still relatively new to the company, but hardly so to the Federal marketplace. Throughout her career, she has held numerous leadership roles at high-profile organizations like ASG Technologies, Micro Focus Government Solutions, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, to name a few. […]
Only 25 percent of jobs in the technology industry and less than 20 percent of all tech leadership positions are held by women – but General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) is leading the charge to provide the knowledge and tools to change that. […]
For many government agencies, Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology has formed the core of their networks for decades. Because many mission-critical operations run on TDM services, organizations often took an ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to TDM. Today, TDM technologies are at end of life – or beyond – and expertise in them is quickly dwindling. […]
The U.S. Army announced it has delayed the rollout of its augmented reality headsets, which it expected to be in use this fall, until September 2022. […]
The Federal Chief Data Officers (CDO) Council is seeking feedback on its mission and focus areas, including workforce development, in a new request for information (RFI) published on the Federal Register today. […]
Cyber threats, including ransomware attacks, are now a national security issue as bad actors target Federal agencies and our nation’s critical infrastructure. Protecting Federal agencies against these cyber threats is a national imperative, evidenced by the Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order mandating that agencies take additional measures to secure Federal infrastructure. […]
Federal IT leaders are balancing IT spend and project prioritization while trying to drive digital transformation to modernize government operations and meet the needs of the American people. It’s a monumental task, made even more challenging in disparate and siloed working environments. Taking a holistic approach to digital transformation in government requires a shift in mindsets. […]
Bryan Rosensteel has spent more than a decade working with identity in the Federal government. As a Federal solutions architect at identity services provider Ping Identity, he advises government agencies on best practices for deploying zero trust security architecture. When President Biden issued the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO), Rosensteel was positively giddy about its potential to transform the way government secures data and operations. MeriTalk sat down with Rosensteel to explore the letter and the spirit of the EO, how centralized identity, credential, and access management (ICAM) can help agencies get to zero trust, and why agencies shouldn’t inherently trust anything – not even technology. […]
The coronavirus pandemic – for all the tragedy and disruption it continues to cause – has advanced the cause of digital modernization by three to five years, leaving government and private sector organizations better prepared to provide improved digital services going forward. […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are driving breakthroughs in innovation, but Federal agencies struggle to keep up with the growth of data that these technologies produce. According to a MeriTalk study, 88 percent of Federal IT leaders are frustrated with their agency’s data management strategies. […]
Federal chief data officers (CDOs) are seeking more guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) when it comes to the Federal Data Strategy, despite deadlines passing for many key deliverables. […]
The Periodically Listing Updates to Management (PLUM) Act, which aims to increase the transparency of senior government leaders, has been included in the fiscal year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House late Sept. 23. […]
Federal IT professionals often feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Their “customers” – which include every U.S. citizen as well as legions of internal stakeholders – want them to deliver modern services faster, more securely, and more cost-effectively at a time when workloads and expectations have never been greater. Couple this with record employee transitions and steep competition for talent, and IT professionals face a Herculean mission. […]
In this era of political division, technology can be a unifier. While only 15 percent of Americans say they trust the Federal government to do what is right for them and their families all or most of the time, the vast majority (68 percent) say Federal spending on technology is worth the investment. That sentiment crosses party lines, with 79 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans, and 60 percent of independents in agreement. […]
Growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies is driving new demands across the Federal enterprise for secure storage and effective data management. Data is no longer just accumulated and stored. Teams rely on robust, timely data analysis to support daily operations and innovation. Secure storage, access, and management of data are critical to agency missions. […]
President Biden announced this week he will nominate Willie Phillips as a commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an agency that regulates the interstate transmission of natural gas, oil, and electricity – including critical infrastructure such as the electric grid and natural gas pipelines. […]
Even for cybersecurity policy vets like Splunk’s Bill Wright, 2021 has taken the cake as the busiest year for Federal cybersecurity policy in the past decade – at least since 2012 when the big event was a mandatory cyber threat data sharing bill that Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., couldn’t quite push over the finish line. […]
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) named Gregory Edwards to a new position as chief information security officer (CISO). […]
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Federal government adoption of hybrid cloud as agencies endeavored to provide secure data access and data management for workloads and applications anywhere and everywhere. In a new MeriTV interview, Chad Martin discusses enterprise data management and security in hybrid cloud environments and what agencies need to consider as they prepare for employees to return to the office and for continued telework. […]
Department of Labor CIO Gundeep Ahluwalia stressed during a recent MeriTalk webinar the importance of overcoming data fragmentation to help agencies deliver on their missions and the importance of advanced data analysis technologies to accomplish that goal. […]
President Joe Biden announced his intent to appoint ten members to the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP), an independent entity within the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). […]
The longer the coronavirus pandemic lasts, the further in the rear-view mirror fades the pre-March 2020 version of work-life as many of us knew it – and the less likely it is that workforces spanning both the government and private sectors will ever fully get back to what was normal before the public health crisis. […]
Imagine working at the intersection of threat analysis and response, and cybersecurity service delivery, and you’ll get a good idea of what Rick Driggers has been doing for the last decade-plus, and what he’s bringing to his new position as critical infrastructure cyber lead at Accenture Federal Services. […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week it’s launching a new center for public health data, known as the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics. […]
Cloud service behemoths Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft appear to be squaring off once again over a big Federal government cloud contract – this time a deal awarded by the National Security Agency (NSA) to AWS. […]