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. […]

What would it take to make America work better for everybody? Perhaps convene bipartisan Congressional power structures, government agency secretaries, and America’s tech industry leaders to pick the most pressing problems for citizens in our democracy? Then figure out how to begin solving those problems with innovative technology and bold leadership? […]

While Federal cybersecurity leaders have prioritized detection, remediation, and zero trust policies due to the recent flood of cyberattacks, new research – “Containing the Cyber Threat Tsunami” – uncovers the desire to shift the current security mindset to a greater emphasis on breach prevention. […]

Recent cyberattacks on critical infrastructure have elevated cybersecurity in the national discourse. For everyday citizens all the way to Congress and the White House, cybersecurity is top of mind. […]

Federal IT leaders want to see their agencies achieve enterprise-wide artificial intelligence (AI) proficiency in the next three to four years, according to a recent survey from MeriTalk underwritten by Dell Technologies and NVIDIA, “From Pilots to Proficiency: Operationalizing Federal AI.” […]

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president focused on digital issues, said today she’s “really encouraged” by recent tech-sector actions taken by President Biden to create greater competition, and is hopeful emerging technologies such as AI will create a bigger public sector market. […]

MeriTalk recently sat down with Matt Trudewind, senior technical marketing engineer on security at NetApp, to talk about all things ransomware. During the discussion, Matt dove into the growing threat of cyberattacks targeting Federal agencies, and walked through the critical steps needed in ransomware remediation. With this ever-increasing threat comes a need for a robust cybersecurity strategy with solutions and technology in place to address attacks both before – and after – they occur. Today, Matt shares his insights on the best ways to get to those goals. […]

Republican members of Congress have written separate letters to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing concerns about the companies’ collection of data on students, among other issues. […]

Former Federal CIO Suzette Kent, a champion of Federal IT modernization, has joined the Public Sector Advisory Board at Rubrik, a cloud data management company. […]

For once, the biggest problem with engineering effective IT modernization may not boil down to a lack of money to tackle the job. That conclusion was a top-line takeaway from Republicans, Democrats, and private sector experts at a hearing of the House Government Operations Subcommittee hearing today on how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed state and local governments’ antiquated IT systems, and what governments should do about it now that pandemic conditions are easing in many areas. […]

Ransomware has rocketed to the top of the Biden administration’s agenda as cyberattacks launched from the soil of U.S. adversaries have started to bite into key critical infrastructure. […]

The SolarWinds breach, the Colonial Pipeline, the JBS meatpacking ransomware attacks, and most recently a ransomware attack on a House of Representative email vendor have Federal cybersecurity and IT leaders wondering what’s next. […]

While zero trust may be the latest buzzword in cybersecurity, the security principles behind a zero trust architecture aren’t new. Adoption across the Federal government has been slow as agencies deal with legacy systems, budget issues, competing priorities, and a shortage of security experts. […]