The White House on Jan. 4 sent to the Senate fresh nominations for dozens of senior Federal government posts, including key positions at the Department of Energy (DoE), the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is nudging the Department of Commerce to develop performance goals with measurable targets for the government’s Manufacturing USA effort – a joint effort among Commerce, the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Energy (DOE) on a network of 16 advanced manufacturing institutes to promote advanced manufacturing and technologies. […]

cybersecurity

With President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) directing Federal agencies to begin moving to zero trust security architectures, agencies already have begun to make the shift. However, progress on zero trust migration – which some Federal officials termed a “paradigm shift” at an ATARC webinar today – will look different for every agency. […]

Bipartisan legislation was introduced in the House last week to boost U.S. supply chains and foster domestic manufacturing of “critical goods” by creating a Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response Office in the Department of Commerce. […]

Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce’s (DoC) Bureau of Industry and Security published a request for comments to gain feedback on what should be included in a report on supply chains for critical sectors and subsectors of the information and communications technology (ICT) industrial base. […]

The Department of Commerce (DOC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported that the Census Bureau was hacked in early 2020 via a publicly available exploit. But the attack was only partially successful in that the attackers’ attempts to maintain access to the system by creating a backdoor in the affected servers were unsuccessful. […]

Department of Commerce

With the coronavirus pandemic continuing to provide a stubborn barrier to full-fledged office workplace returns for many Federal agencies, the Commerce Department’s chief information security officer (CISO) spoke on August 17 about paying attention to human-centric aspects of security in the development of next-generation workplaces. […]

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, wrote a letter to the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) Bureau of Industry Security (BIS) asking for details on implementing a “Final Rule” restricting access by China-based network equipment maker Huawei to U.S. technologies, and whether companies are still seeking to sell restricted technology to the company. […]

Department of Commerce

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report that four Federal agencies it examined are making progress on establishing data governance policies, but still have more work to do on some key milestones including assessing data and infrastructure maturity, and staff data literacy. […]

Census 2020 image-min

In August, the Census Bureau announced that it would be delivering appointment data by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing delays. Compressed timeframes, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), could present challenges to monitoring ongoing IT risks, among other issues. […]

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has recommended that the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) within the Department of Commerce be selected to conduct Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) duties, including IT and data-related aspects of those functions. […]

Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce released a draft regulation for a case-by-case process of banning Americans from buying IT equipment from companies controlled by foreign interests, a power granted by May’s executive order on supply chain security. […]

U.S. Patent Trademark Office USPTO Commerce

The United State Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) did not properly manage its active directory, leaving multiple vulnerabilities and showing little improvement from previous audits of the agency’s cybersecurity posture, according to a Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (IG) report released June 13. […]

The Department of Commerce announced that it will add Huawei to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, preventing American companies from selling technology to Huawei without approval from the American government. […]

DCOI data center server room infrastructure hyperconverged cloud storage architecture
Success and Failure

As Federal CIOs brace for tomorrow’s Oversight and Government Reform IT Subcommittee FITARA hearing, it’s not great news on the fifth FITARA report card.  […]

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