The Defense Department (DoD) is working to foster innovation in the information technology space, and is due to report findings of an assessment of its research engineering workforce later this year, a DoD official told members of Congress today.  […]

Several House members expressed concern today over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) approach to managing cyber risks and the agency’s cybersecurity strategies, while the agency’s chief information security officer countered that VA cyber programs are on par with those at work in other Federal agencies. “VA prides itself as being the nation’s largest integrated […]

In a short executive session today, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee advanced the nomination of Eric Lander to be the next director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). His nomination will now go to the full Senate for consideration. […]

New legislation introduced in the Senate today would authorize $100 million of Federal spending per year, for a period of seven years, to help state and local governments take quick action on fixing pressing IT problems. […]

The House Homeland Security Committee voted May 18 to advance five bills that would look to improve the nation’s cybersecurity in several areas, including protecting pipeline infrastructure, testing cybersecurity readiness, and improving state and local cybersecurity, among others. […]

The Endless Frontier bill championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and set for Senate floor debate over the next several days has grown by leaps and bounds this week with the addition of semiconductor manufacturing and cybersecurity components and has even gotten a new name – the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. […]

In a new report of nearly 30,000 cyber incidents, roughly 70 percent of public sector breaches were found to be the product of social engineering campaigns—relying mostly on phishing attacks. […]

Federal CIO Clare Martorana today laid out her vision for civilian government-wide Federal IT improvements that match up broadly with many of the larger goals outlined in projects and spending priorities announced earlier this month for the recent $1 billion cash infusion into the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). In her first extended public policy address […]

Senators expressed concern that the Department of Defense (DoD) is not doing enough to support small businesses in the defense industrial base (DIB) to implement or subsidize cybersecurity protocols, including the DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certificate (CMMC) at a May 18 Senate Subcommittee on Cybersecurity hearing. […]

Condoleezza Rice, the 66th Secretary of State, and Anja Manuel, former diplomat and advisor on emerging markets, gathered My 19 at Nutanix’s Women in Tech: Economic Value of Diversity in Tech virtual event to offer advice to women in the tech field and encourage them to seize the opportunities available to them. […]

Development, Security, and Operations (DevSecOps) concepts are critical to adopting technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and building a DevSecOps culture will help ensure AI architectures are secure and national security maintained, military tech leaders said today. […]

An internal review of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program has been completed, according to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who said he understands that the DoD review will produce “significant” changes to the program. […]

Senators Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., on May 18 reintroduced the Rural Broadband Financing Flexibility Act that would provide a boost in rural broadband investment to state and local governments. […]

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., ranking member of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, urged the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in a May 18 letter to bring Federal employees back to their pre-pandemic workplaces quickly, or explain how the Biden administration will deal going forward with the billions of dollars it spends on currently underutilized facilities if Federal employees continue large-scale work from other locations. […]

Federal civilian and defense contract spending for artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) will  reach approximately $3 billion this year, according to Bloomberg Government. […]

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., have announced a pair of AI-focused bipartisan bills to strengthen U.S. AI readiness and support long-term AI investments. […]

Following the recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Company, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., proposed a bill last week that would require the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to establish a National Cyber Exercise Program to test the United States’ cyber readiness. […]

The Senate late on May 17 voted to proceed with debate on the Endless Frontier Act, a bill introduced in April with broad bipartisan sponsorship that would pour $100 billion of Federal spending over five years into research and development spending on ten hot-button tech areas. […]

To close the broadband divide in both urban and rural America, the Federal government must focus on providing significant funding, ensuring accurate data, and work to ensure equity is baked into broadband expansion plans. During a House Committee on Appropriations hearing today, telecommunications and civil rights experts shared their thoughts on what the Federal government, […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) May 17 released a blueprint on integrating Grid-Interactive Technologies into building renovation and improvement plans, along with the Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). […]

Following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated mask guidance released last week, the White House said fully vaccinated Federal employees, onsite contractors, and visitors to Federal buildings no longer have to wear masks. […]

We sat down with Rob Buhrman, a principal with Grant Thornton Public Sector, to evaluate the billion-dollar potential in the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) and what this influx of support could mean for agency digital transformation efforts. […]

The Department of Education is redesigning and modernizing its current website to provide a seamless digital experience for the American public, according to a department blog post. […]

The Department of Education has launched an outreach campaign to alert K-12 and higher education students that they are eligible for a monthly discount on broadband internet service. […]

How much time makes for the right investment to learn something powerful and new about the latest waves of emerging technologies that are driving change in government IT? We’re betting that if you have just 20 minutes to spare for the GDIT Emerge 2021 virtual conference on emerging technologies on May 26, the juice will be well worth the squeeze. […]

The Defense Department’s (DoD) top cybersecurity official said at the RSA Cybersecurity Conference today that the agency’s current efforts to implement zero trust security concepts represent a “game changer” in the Pentagon’s network security efforts, but emphasized that traditional perimeter and layered defenses remain as important as ever in DoD’s big-picture security strategy. […]

Democracy Forward and a coalition of public interest organizations wrote to the General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) and requested that they address the reduced transparency of GSA’s Regulations.gov website. […]

Fifteen members of the House Committee on Homeland Security reintroduced the Pipeline Security Act on May 14 in an effort to secure pipelines from nefarious cybersecurity or terrorist attacks, in the wake of the recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Company. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it has granted additional spectrum licenses for Tribal lands. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) on May 13 released the initial Defense Department (DoD) Zero Trust Reference Architecture that aims to boost cybersecurity and “maintain information superiority on the digital battlefield.” […]