This week, two members of the White House technology policy team, Grace Koh and Reed Cordish, announced that they are leaving their positions. The White House already selected replacements for both positions. […]

The Trump Administration’s proposed $4.4 trillion budget for FY2019 would add some money to the cybersecurity pot, supporting ongoing programs and manpower levels, while cutting back on cybersecurity research and redistributing where the research money goes. Administration budget requests are largely political documents whose numbers won’t hold up once Congress gets done with making the sausage, but they do reflect White House priorities. […]

The Trump Administration proposes spending nearly $45.8 billion on IT investments at major civilian agencies next year, a slight rise from the $45.6 billion in fiscal 2018, according to the 2019 budget proposal released Monday. […]

The cloud is not a one-size fits all solution, and, as such, the government is looking to invest in two or three cloud models to support the differing security and risk-tolerance postures of agencies and to leverage various shared services, according to the President’s IT Modernization Report. […]

We see lots of moves to IT modernization in motion–but how does it all come together? The White House wants to tie those into a broader program, creating a new ecosystem to fuel government-wide modernization efforts. […]

Once again, Washington is racing toward a shutdown. In what is becoming practically a monthly political exercise, Republicans and Democrats are unable to come to an agreement on how to fund the government. If a compromise isn’t reached, the shutdown will start Friday, Jan. 19 at 11:59 p.m. […]

Last year brought a great deal of change to Washington, D.C., from a new administration moving into the White House to D.C. United building a new stadium. As 2018 starts up with seemingly limitless IT opportunities ahead, MeriTalk takes a look back on the top Federal IT stories from 2017. […]

In a report released on Dec. 7, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that while Veterans Affairs (VA) has made some progress on key IT initiatives under Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) requirements, it has nonetheless fallen short of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) targets regarding consolidating and optimizing its data centers. […]

The White House wants to clear the way for Federal agencies to adopt commercial cloud computing, even if that means tweaking acquisition rules to help them get there. […]

The GSA is concerned that current cloud procurement methods are leading to confusion and a lack compliance with FedRAMP requirements. To curb the contract discrepancies, the GSA released a new RFI seeking industry input to “identify examples of preferred contract language agencies should incorporate to convey FedRAMP requirements in their solicitations,” according to a FedRAMP blog. […]

Product managers at the U.S. Digital Service said that policy and operations teams should work together at Federal agencies to ensure that new technologies affect users in the way that policies intend. Natalie Kates, product manager at USDS, is working with Health and Human Service’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on building the Quality Payment Program website. […]

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum for agencies to submit their Federal Information Security Modernization Act reports to the Government Accountability Office by March 1, 2018. […]

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on Oct. 5 that requires Federal agencies to set up an information sharing network to correspond about threats to national security. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, called for the administration to nominate more permanent agency chief information officers. “I’m worried that we don’t want to stall some of the progress that we’ve achieved over the last couple of years,” Hurd said. […]

President Donald Trump declared October 2017 National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The announcement follows the Equifax breach in September, which affected about 143 million U.S. consumers. Trump signed a Cybersecurity Executive Order in May in an effort to strengthen Federal cybersecurity and hold agency heads accountable for security issues. […]

As Federal agencies and the Office of Management and Budget work to develop reorganization plans as part of a March executive order, Congress needs to improve its oversight of those agencies, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp D-N.D., said at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing. […]

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said that he expects his Modernizing Government Technology Act to pass the Senate within the next week as an add-on to the Senate’s 2018 National Defense Authorization Act deliberations. “Buying IT goods and services in the Federal government is pretty silly,” said Hurd, criticizing the fact that agencies must use all of their IT funding for the year or risk losing it. “That is an insane way to purchase things to defend our digital infrastructure,” […]

The Federal government is working on improving its inter-agency information sharing process during cyber threats, but Greg Touhill, former Federal CISO, said that information sharing is useless if recipients of the information don’t act on it. “You can share all day long but if people aren’t listening and they aren’t acting on it, bad things are going to happen,” Touhill, president of Cyxtera Federal Group, said at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference on Sept. 12. […]

Former Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Tony Scott has joined the law firm Squire Patton Boggs as a senior data privacy and cybersecurity adviser, the firm announced. […]

Though new initiatives like the Cybersecurity Executive Order cover many of the same issues tackled by past administrations, the focus on IT modernization will make a big difference in actually improving cybersecurity, according to Barry West, senior adviser and senior accountable official for risk management at the Department of Homeland Security. […]

As Congress approaches its Oct. 1 deadline for funding the Federal government, employees and contractors can stay prepared by knowing what to expect in the event of a shutdown. […]

The White House American Technology Council IT modernization report, released Aug. 30, emphasizes the need for updated IT infrastructure and shared services. The ATC said that the Federal government should invest in two to three cloud platforms to support all of the agencies. […]

The United States Digital Service turned 3 years old earlier this month and highlighted this year’s major projects, including modernizing the Veterans Affairs website, launching Code.mil, and starting the #Procuremenati. […]

A draft of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) Cyber Working Group report on securing the nation’s critical infrastructure has found that while the U.S. has the capabilities to defend against cyber attacks, it lacks the coordination to do so effectively. […]

President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 18 that he directed United States Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) to be elevated to full combatant command. […]

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to White House Counsel Don McGahn asking for the Trump administration’s rationale in publishing the emails sent by many citizens to critique the President’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, many of which contained sensitive personal information. […]

Congress will likely be putting bipartisan pressure on the White House to fill critical IT positions in Federal agencies and prioritize modernization efforts, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., predicted at the ServiceNow Town Hall. […]

Federal agencies are working on ideas to reorganize and streamline, as requested by the Office of Management and Budget and President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on a Comprehensive Plan to Reorganize the Executive Branch.
“Many manual processes remain, especially when it comes to processes that cut across multiple departments. Initiating a cross-cutting, agencywide approach to service delivery is necessary but challenging, especially when we look at holistic service delivery that marshals the data stored in legacy systems,” said Bob Osborn, chief technology officer for ServiceNow Federal. […]

The United States Digital Service released its July report to Congress, detailing projects including streamlining Veterans Affairs services, modernizing the immigration system, Hack the Pentagon, and IT acquisition training. […]

The government is counting on education, financial incentives, and minority outreach to help expand the cybersecurity workforce. The Office of Personnel Management created a Strategic Recruitment for Cybersecurity Model to complement the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy, which was released last year, and plans to release the details of the model on July 25. […]