La’Naia Jones, Deputy CIO of the Intelligence Community, said today that the commoditization of hacking capabilities, expansion of IT supply chain exploits, and nation-state use of ransomware have come to the attention of the IC as primary areas of interest in the fight for better cybersecurity. […]

The Department of Homeland Security on Aug. 13-15 hosted “Tabletop the Vote 2018: DHS’ National Election Cyber Exercise,” which invited vendors and Federal, state and local election officials to participate in election security preparation.

Wayne Belk, director of the National Insider Threat Task Force (NITTF), said today at an event hosted by Nextgov and Equifax that his unit in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now working with the Defense Department to clarify and strengthen the roles of the Federal government’s insider threat staff, beginning with its security analysts.

Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said today that the billions of dollars the U.S. government and private sector spend each year on cybersecurity are not being properly and efficiently utilized unless government and industry wrap human resources departments tightly into security discussions.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Monday that the intelligence community (IC) will be prioritizing a comprehensive cyber posture, machine-augmented intelligence, and modern data management as “foundational priorities” in the coming years, following a year-long reexamination of the IC known as the IC2025 initiative.

Various arms of the Federal government are grappling with how to best curb critical infrastructure risk despite uncertainty regarding the best path forward and knowledge barriers surrounding the underlying technology.

The White House isn’t doing enough to address in a public forum a range of artificial intelligence issues and needs to institute a public process to seek comments on AI-related issues, said a group of six industry groups and more than 80 individuals from academia and the private sector in a July 4 letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is piloting a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative with Canada’s Department of National Defense that kicked off today and aims to provide first responders and paramedics with information to help make potential life-saving decisions in the field.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee today approved by voice vote the Cyber Deterrence and Response Act, which would “address state-sponsored cyber activities against the United States” by directing the President to designate “critical cyber threat actors.”

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk.

Joyce Corell, assistant director for the supply chain directorate at the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) National Counterintelligence and Security Center, predicts that regulation or other means to manage IT supply chain security risk is inevitable, given increased emphasis on the topic across government. Speaking at an Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board meeting Friday, Corell said rumblings across the Federal space concerning supply chain risk will soon likely lead to even more formal steps.

It is imperative for Federal agencies to effectively utilize threat intelligence combined with the power and agility of the cloud to better defend their networks. But, today, agencies are lacking adequate situational awareness to give their IT and security teams more clarity about what is going on in their networked environments. So, what’s holding them back?

President Donald Trump nominated two former members of the U.S. Congress who have experience with Russian affairs to direct the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and they have vastly different personalities. How will these men affect the future of these intelligence agencies?

Efforts to ensure agencies are sharing counterterrorism intelligence remain uneven and “less effective” than they could be, according to a report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General.

President Donald Trump was supposed to sign a sweeping cybersecurity executive order last month, but delayed its release shortly after meeting with senior national security leaders and industry experts. But the timing of the final order is far less important than the changes that are likely being made to the content of the order.

The House last week passed the fiscal 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act, which includes a wide variety of cyber-related programs and policies. Although HR 6393 must still make its way through the Senate, the bill authorizes spending on everything from recruiting and retaining technology workers throughout the intelligence community and the FBI, to fighting online propaganda by ISIS and Russia, and cybersecurity threats facing U.S. seaports.

What do you get when you cross a third-generation Portuguese congressman with a completely logical plan to consolidate the military’s Joint Intelligence Analysis Centers around the world?

MeriTalk recently broke the news that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is planning to hire its first chief information officer. Sounds pretty straightforward, but there is much more to the story and the timing of this new job search at ODNI.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence plans to hire its first chief information officer to take charge of IT programs across the ODNI’s 20 component offices, particularly the effort to retire legacy IT systems and migrate users to the cloud.