The General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a five-year, $674 million contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to support the growth of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Advana data analytics platform to improve decision making across the organization. […]
The Department of Labor (DOL) – and numerous state governments that the agency assists – struggled during the coronavirus pandemic to ramp up unemployment insurance (UI) programs to meet sharp increases in demand. Some of the principal culprits, according to DOL’s inspector general (IG), were legacy systems, insufficient staffing resources to manage increased unemployment claims, and unclear and untimely Employment and Training Administration (ETA) guidance. […]
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and several chairs of the panel’s key subcommittees today asked inspectors general (IGs) from ten Federal agencies for assessments of any cybersecurity vulnerabilities that were created or worsened by the use of telework systems during the coronavirus pandemic, and whether any such vulnerabilities have been mitigated. […]
A senior official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today the Federal government’s process of modernizing its IT systems to achieve better cybersecurity may be a decades-long process. […]
Dave Zvenyach, director of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services (TTS) organization, shared insights today on how to become a better digital leader while working remotely, along with tools and methods he uses to do so. […]
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is seeking feedback on what to include in its Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), as directed by President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order. […]
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Ca., introduced a bill on June 1 that looks to improve the cybersecurity infrastructure of government contractors, his office announced. The Improving Contractor Cybersecurity Act would require any vendor looking to do business with the Federal government to have vulnerability disclosure policies (VDP) in place. […]
The Biden administration is publicly demonstrating its willingness to lend Federal help to respond to a variety of ransomware assaults against critical infrastructure sectors – the latest involving a cyberattack against JBS USA, the world’s largest meatpacker, that forced the company reportedly to shut down nine of its plants. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking innovative research concepts into how repressive regimes suppress the free flow of information. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) and Microsoft are arguing for a shorter duration of any further legal proceedings before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims over the Defense Department’s (DoD) Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud services contract it re-awarded to Microsoft last year. […]
Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced legislation on May 28 that would create a cybersecurity personnel rotation program in an effort to strengthen the United States’ Federal cyber workforce and infrastructure. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI are looking into last week’s spear-phishing campaign targeting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and have not found any “significant impact” to Federal agencies, according to a May 28 joint statement. […]
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., reintroduced the K-12 Cybersecurity Act May 27 in an effort to strengthen the cybersecurity of school systems. This is the second time the two introduced the Act, having previously introduced similar legislation in 2019 in the last Congress. […]
Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced legislation on May 27 that would attempt to prevent the use of discriminatory online algorithms, and create a Federal inter-agency task force to investigate the use of algorithm-driven processes. […]
President Biden’s FY2022 budget document released today proposes a 14 percent increase from the estimated cybersecurity funding level for last year, to a total of $9.8 billion in Federal civilian cybersecurity funding. […]
President Biden’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 budget includes an estimated $58.439 billion in IT spending for Federal civilian agencies, and $500 million for the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), according to a budget breakdown the White House released today. […]
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was the victim of a May 25 spear-phishing campaign that carried all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored attack, Microsoft said yesterday. […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a new report that the agency has made improvements to its data management practices in recent years, and said continued improvement is necessary to address internal control issues. […]
President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nominees pledged their commitment to elevate the United States’ cybersecurity posture, in order to prevent future cyberattacks, during a May 27 Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs hearing. […]
Anne Neuberger, the White House deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies who is a driving force behind the Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order issued earlier this month, today noted an initial “disappointment” with Federal network hygiene in a follow-up discussion about the broader aims of the order. […]
The recent Colonial Pipeline hack has made more people aware of the threats that lurk in cyberspace, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, says it’s time for the government to develop a new relationship with the private sector on cybersecurity and take an all-of-society approach to protecting critical infrastructure. “The private sector has been very reluctant […]
In light of the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released a new directive requiring all critical pipeline owners and operators to report cyberattacks, DHS announced today. […]
The U.S. Army CIO has released a new policy for Internet of Things (IoT) device cybersecurity which mandates that all Army personnel who are approved to telework remove or turn off all IoT devices in their workspaces. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) strategic review of the VA’s Electronic Health Records (EHR) program has found that the agency underestimated program costs by between $1 billion and $2.6 billion. […]
Legislation to establish a Blockchain Center of Excellence (CoE) within the Department of Commerce was reintroduced in the House on May 25. […]
Mark Munsell, deputy director of data and innovation at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the agency’s former CTO, is urging the Federal government to build cyber applications faster in order to out-compete adversaries, and to expand industry partnerships. […]
For government agencies and other organizations that face the daunting task of modernizing their IT systems to meet new and developing requirements, the greatest technical risk they face is maintaining the status quo. […]
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Federal agencies to work remotely almost immediately, but Federal CIOs and CTOs agree that this shift to teleworking has enabled agencies to undergo a transformational cultural shift within the agency and provides more opportunities for innovation. […]
In a Senate Appropriations Committee review of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget request today, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas emphasized the importance of building resilience among the nation’s cybersecurity and the cyber workforce. […]
Connected cities are not just seeking ways to transform their technology infrastructure, but also looking to build a 21st-century workforce across critical sectors to meet the challenges of innovative transformation. During the ACT-IAC Emerging Technology and Innovation event today, IT officials from across the country spoke to how workforce scarcity is the real capital that’s […]