The Environmental Protection Agency launched the Smart Sectors Program to help companies use new technologies to protect the environment. The program uses a sector-based approach that provides benefits, such as increased long-term certainty and predictability, creative solutions based on sound data, and more policies to improve environmental protection. […]

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. […]

The Federal government is finding new ways to make Federal spending data more transparent to citizens by launching the Treasury Department’s Data Lab, and considering a bill that would add open data requirements to Federal grants. […]

Senators in hearings this week denounced Equifax’s handling of the data breach that is now estimated to have affected 145 million Americans. Equifax Chairman and former CEO Richard Smith testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Oct. 4. […]

Industry experts told Congress on Oct. 3 that regulations are necessary to secure the Internet of Things. “Is the industry doing enough to ensure the security of IoT devices?” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., asked at the IT Subcommittee hearing on the Cybersecurity of IoT. […]

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. […]

The Federal Communications Commission announced that states that want to opt out of the FirstNet radio access network for first responders must do so by Dec. 28. Opt-out notices must be sent by the governors of the states or territories to FirstNet and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. […]

The Department of Homeland Security plans next month to stand up a governmentwide dashboard that will give the agency visibility into all of the Federal networks. The dashboard is part of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program, which was supported in the White House’s IT Modernization report. […]

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. […]

The General Services Administration announced Sept. 28 the launch of the FedRAMP Tailored Baseline for Cloud Service Providers with Low-Impact Software-as-a-Service Systems. […]

Esri has deployed the CrowdRescue Puerto Rico Infrastructure Map, which displays crowdsourced reports about damage from Hurricane Maria affecting the U.S. territory. The map enables a visualization of closed roads, collapsed bridges, flooding, mudslides, areas where communication is unavailable, areas that don’t have power, areas without drinking water, and areas with downed power lines. […]

The Commerce Department is asking for public opinion on its Next Generation 911 Grant Program, which would modernize 911 services so that citizens can use IP-based, broadband-enabled technologies to coordinate emergency responses. […]

Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., plan to announce legislation that would pave the way for increased innovation in self-driving vehicle technologies. “Ultimately, we expect adoption of self-driving vehicle technologies will save lives, improve mobility for people with disabilities, and create new jobs,” they said in a statement. […]

Cybersecurity standards for Internet of Things devices need to be improved in order to secure medical devices that have created the “Internet of Bodies.” Terrell McSweeny, commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, said that more regulation needs to be written before connected medical devices become commonplace. […]

Agencies have begun to focus more on how to leverage shared services after the release of the Cybersecurity Executive Order, which advocates for agencies to share platforms for common operations like human resources and finances. […]

Government doesn’t take the dangers of metadata security seriously enough, members of industry said at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure event on Sept. 26. They cited the passage of SJ 34, which reduced regulations on Internet service providers’ use of metadata generated by their customers. […]

In order to get more government agencies to transition to the cloud, agency experts said that the procurement process has to become easier and clearer. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services is distilling cyber threat intelligence for a health care audience, according to HHS CISO Chris Wlaschin, who spoke at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology Briefing on Sept. 26. He said the Healthcare Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center is not meant “to replace current capabilities or functionality or services provided by” the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity Communications and Integration Center. […]

The working capital fund created by the Modernizing Government Technology Act is the acquisition tool that agencies need to meet Data Center Optimization Initiative goals. […]

The Deloitte data breach that compromised the confidential emails and plans of some of its clients affected Federal agencies. Deloitte serves clients in finance, media, and government, which all had data in the breached email system. The affected organizations include major companies and U.S. government departments. […]

Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Tim Murphy, R-Pa., sent a letter requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) attend a briefing with the Energy and Commerce committee on pharmaceutical companies affected by malware, such as the recent NotPetya malware’s impact on pharmaceutical company Merck. […]

President Donald Trump will sign a memorandum today to strengthen computer science education in schools, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced during a press briefing on Sept. 25. The memorandum will mandate that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos provide $200 million per year in grants for science and technology education to strengthen STEM programs in schools, and to add computer science to the curriculum in K-12 schools. […]

Department of Homeland Security officials told 21 states on Sept. 22 that their election systems were breached by Russian hackers. This is the first instance that the Federal government told states whether they were targeted. […]

A memorandum issued by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan establishes an initiative to move many DoD IT systems to the cloud, a move that members of industry are applauding for its potential to open the department to faster innovation. […]

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a total of 132 airspace authorizations to drone users as of Sept. 15 to assist in Hurricane Irma recovery efforts, and 137 authorizations to assist in Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. The Air National Guard used drones to assess disaster-stricken areas quickly and decide where to send resources. […]

Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., reintroduced legislation this week that would require companies that experience a breach to notify affected individuals within 30 days of the breach’s discovery and that they coordinate with the Federal Trade Commission to do so. […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement on Sept. 20, which said that it learned in August 2017 of a cyberattack previously detected in 2016 might have allowed illicit gain through trading. In May 2017, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton initiated an assessment of the agency’s internal cybersecurity risk profile and approach to cybersecurity. […]

The Internet of Things has spawned many changes within the Federal government, including new methods of data collection at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), new policy considerations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and a realignment of the Office of the CIO (OCIO) at the Department of Commerce. […]

Information sharing about cybersecurity threats has to go beyond fulfilling requirements and instead include informal relationships and discussions between agencies, according to government experts who spoke at the MeriTalk Cyber Security Brainstorm on Sept. 20. […]

One of the most important aspects of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program is making sure that the dashboard is flexible and able to display metrics that the specific agencies want to track. […]