The need to move away from the use of passwords as a primary mode of authentication and security remains one of the most important steps that government and private sector organizations can take to improve security and move toward zero trust security, according to Kenny Harrison, Division Chief of the Telecommunications Office at the U.S. Census Bureau. […]

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Chief Information Officer Guy Cavallo said today that his agency’s work with the General Services Administration’s (GSA) login.gov technology for authentication and identity proofing is paying off in OPM’s continuing efforts to make enterprise-wide technology improvements. […]

The Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) component has launched a fresh effort to gather insights into the current global artificial intelligence (AI) market, along with concerns about international AI policies, regulations, and other measures which may impact U.S. exports of AI technologies. […]

Microsoft has disrupted a Russian cybercriminal group named SEABORGIUM from conducting further cyberattacks that have heavily aligned with Russian state interest. […]

The U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) is opening up a contest to highlight servicemember and civilian ideas, inventions, and processes aimed at finding new solutions to military problems. The contest, called Innovation Oasis, is a “Shark Tank”-like innovation competition where USCENTCOM will select on October 12 the five best ideas with the greatest potential to improve operations, policy, or the lives of troops. […]

Implementation of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices – which involve applying software engineering to DevOps and operations problems – is working through a number of hurdles including training issues, government and private sector experts explained at an August 11 event organized by ATARC. […]

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine; and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., are asking Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for a briefing on what HHS is doing to help share cyber threat data with members of the healthcare and public health (HPH) sector – particularly in light of ramped-up ransomware attacks against the sector in recent years. […]

Federal agencies need to adjust their cyber threat scanning protocols to ensure they are getting a full-scope analysis of possible risk factors within their networks, and are not just scratching the surface on risks, officials from the State Department said on August 11 at an event organized by Federal News Network. […]

President Biden is vowing to sign the Inflation Reduction Act this week after a divided House of Representatives on Friday approved the legislation that backers hope will help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rebuild its antiquated technology systems. […]

A new report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee calls for a whole-of-government plan to support state and local election officials amid an increase in election misinformation and disinformation. […]

Leading technology and security companies are banding together to share tools and products to better guard against cyberattacks, saying their security teams are spending more time correlating a blitz of unintegrated data than detecting and responding to threats. […]

Legislation recently introduced in the Senate aims to create a Federal grant system to help fund the construction of new broadband networks in parts of the country that either don’t have much broadband service currently available or that have service speeds of less than 100 megabits per second (Mbps) upload and 20 Mbps download. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Aug. 10 released a new cyber toolkit to help state and local election officials improve the cybersecurity and resilience of their infrastructure ahead of the midterm elections in November. […]

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and subcommittee leaders sent letters on August 10 to five agencies inquiring about their progress in addressing the Apache Log4j vulnerability. […]

A new report from BlackBerry and Corvus Insurance finds that many businesses will struggle to bear the financial costs of ransomware attacks that are not already covered by their insurance companies, and that most of the businesses surveyed believe government should help victims recover from attacks that are linked to nation-states. […]

Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) from 2018 to 2020, said today that his vision for the Federal government’s next leap forward on the technology front involves creating a new “U.S. Digital Agency” that would combine elements of CISA and several other existing agencies to create an organization “focused on empowering better digital risk management services.” […]

A new report from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency is not effectively managing or coordinating its identity, credential, and access management (ICAM) program, and because of that is leaving information vulnerable to cyber intrusions. […]

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) on August 8 released a new report for the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) on current and potential sources of state death data used by Federal agencies for program administration and payment integrity, and pointing to ways for better government cooperation in the sharing of that data. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched the “Your Home, Your Internet” pilot program designed to raise awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) among households receiving Federal housing assistance.   […]

While the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Office of Connected Care’s digital divide program has successfully been providing patients with video-capable devices for video-based virtual care for the past two years, an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report has found that less than half of patients that the agency issued video devices to ended up completing VA Video Connect (VVC) appointments. […]

Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., have joined with Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., to introduce the Proper Leadership to Align Networks (PLAN) for Broadband Act, which calls on President Biden to develop a national broadband strategy. […]

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., introduced legislation on August 4 that aims to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of small businesses by providing funding to Small Business Development Centers that will help businesses with security. […]

Nate Fick, President Biden’s nominee to serve as the ambassador at large to lead the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP), laid out his initial priorities for the newly established bureau during an August 3 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination. […]

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed establishing a new health data agency to improve access to impartial and objective public health data, with the payoff of bolstering infectious disease intelligence and preparedness. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved by voice vote on August 3 two cybersecurity bills whose next stop is consideration by the full Senate. […]

Federal agencies are hard at work developing strategies to overcome data challenges and ensure they’re meeting critical mission needs, Federal data experts from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during the Databricks Data and AI Summit 2022 in late June. […]

The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) continues to be plagued with problems in data collection and assessment of sexual harassment incidents that occur within the agency, according to a recent follow-up report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).   […]

Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., introduced bipartisan legislation on July 28 to strengthen Federal data center security to protect against cyberattacks, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks.   […]

The Environmental Protection Agency will be issuing a rule to extend its sanitary reviews of critical water systems to include cybersecurity, according to Anne Neuberger, the White House’s deputy national security advisor for cybersecurity and emerging technology. […]

Two Federal experts explained a range of cybersecurity risks faced by commercial satellite systems – and customers who rely on them – at a July 28 hearing of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. […]