Leaders of the House Oversight and Reform Committee are launching an investigation into identity verification contractor ID.me, citing concerns about the efficacy, security, and privacy of its facial recognition technology that is used by millions of Americans seeking access to government services. […]
In response to President Biden’s first executive order in office that aims to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities, the White House on April 14 released summaries of the equity plans agencies have put forth to meet the EO’s requirements. […]
As the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) effort to transform the President’s Management Agenda from a list of goals into actionable policy steps gathers steam, OMB is fleshing out its list of Federal agency officials who are taking on leadership rules not only for the three major PMA pushes but for numerous strategic goals within each of them. […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the appointment of 27 new experts to the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisory Committee (NAIAC) – the first appointments for the recently established committee. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has released its Equity Action Plan, which is meant to increase equity in Federal procurement, Federal buildings, and Federal technology design and delivery. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Amentum a five-year contract worth up to $260 million to produce and deploy prototypes that target emerging and uncrewed air, land, maritime, space, and cyber threats for the agency. […]
When implementing zero trust security architectures, an official from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said today that the real change is not a technology change, but instead a “cultural change” within the organization. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the FBI, Department of Energy (DoE), and National Security Agency (NSA), is warning that advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are seeking to gain full access to industrial control systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, CISA warned in a cybersecurity advisory April 13. […]
In response to the Biden Administration calling on agencies to transform customer experience in government, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo Wednesday directing agencies to identify and reduce the burden individuals go through when applying for Federal services. […]
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is seeking information and sources for a Virtual Data Enclave (VDE) for managing data in a protected environment with a tool to share restricted microdata with researchers authorized to access the data. […]
The long road to implementing zero trust security architectures may be driven by top-down policy directives and prioritizing technology pillars, but the art and science of communication and collaboration are showing up as vital inputs into organizing Federal agency technologists and network users to move toward the government’s zero trust goals. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) this week previewed its upcoming Federal Marketplace (FMP) Spring 2022 release, which the agency said will improve the digital experience of all suppliers, buyers, and members of the acquisition workforce. […]
With the 60-day deadlines for some of the objectives from the Office of Management and Budget’s Zero Trust memo now in the rearview, Federal agencies should have a zero trust implementation plan in place, with a focus on initial data categorization and laying the groundwork for a zero trust architecture. […]
When NASA needed to land a probe on Mars, the landing sequence was the riskiest part of the multi-year, multi-billion-dollar mission-critical program. Prior to launch, NASA simulated the process under all potential weather and environmental conditions. Leaving nothing to chance, they used DDN storage solutions to fuel the artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced machine learning applications. After the successful landing on Mars, DDN was further entrusted with the data that made the 91-million-mile journey back to earth for analysis and other simulations. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is building on its AI text analytics capabilities and creating a new “bring your own documents” web portal that will allow customers without an analytics background to apply natural language processing methods to an ad hoc set of documents, according to an HHS official. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Tuesday the seizure of RaidForums, one of the largest online cybercriminal forums globally, and criminal charges against its founder and chief administrator, Diogo Santos Coelho. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking to replace its Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) with a modern platform to better share information with Federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, international, and private sector decision-makers and first responders. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the agency is aiming to begin a rulemaking process to implement mandatory cyber incident reporting rules for critical infrastructure owners and operators included in the Fiscal Year 2022 omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Biden last month. […]
Code for America received two separate investments, totaling $100 million over seven years, to set up its Safety Net Innovation Lab and work with state and local government agencies to modernize their social safety net administration services to make access to government services more equitable, the nonprofit announced April 12. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in a memo this week that it’s offering updates and resources for hiring cybersecurity talent across the Federal workforce, including through a resource hub with tools that aim to streamline the process. […]
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) issued a new report this week that breaks down four problem areas in intergovernmental responses and consequences to the COVID-19 pandemic, and makes recommendations for better disease-related data sharing mechanisms between states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). […]
Protecting healthcare data is essential, but cybersecurity experts say it is one of the hardest industries to protect due to its larger attack surface – and the fact that lives are at risk. […]
The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is hosting a Security at the Edge Cyber Challenge, with the multiple-phase challenge seeking to identify technologies that are capable of providing security-at-the-edge capabilities, according to a special notice posted on SAM.gov. […]
The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) is in search of vendors that can provide Weather Analysis and Survivability Prediction (WAASP) software to inform launch decisions based on real-time meteorological conditions. […]
The Department of State is inviting Federal employees and contractors to renew their passports online before the agency opens that new capability to the public later in 2022. […]
The White House has released a “Rural Playbook” to help familiarize state, local, tribal, and territorial governments in rural areas with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and assist them in applying for funding under the law. […]
The IRS has pledged to work on modernizing its “Where’s My Refund” taxpayer refund tracking tool after a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) flagged the need for the agency to address that and other problems. […]
Microsoft Corp. said it has disrupted cyberattacks from a group linked to the GRU – Russia’s foreign military unit – that were targeting Ukrainian entities and media organizations, as well as government institutions and foreign policy think tanks in the United States, according to an April 7 company blog. […]
Senior Federal and industry cybersecurity leaders agreed that the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) August 2021 memorandum M-21-31 to implement new event logging and share threat information has proven to be a significant step in bolstering cybersecurity across Federal civilian agencies. […]
Dr. Catherine Marsh, director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, talked about the value – in limited doses – of failure as an expected and necessary outcome of the difficult research areas that her organization was created to take on with the help of industry and academia. […]