The head of IT at the Department of Justice (DoJ) today laid out how zero trust must be incorporated into the five strategic pillars of “good IT operations,” including enhancing cybersecurity and elevating the workforce.   […]

Zero trust security is a complex and moving target, but cybersecurity experts today explained how focusing on your people and instilling a culture of cybersecurity can help Federal agencies reduce zero trust complexity. […]

The Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) announced this week the allocation of $45 million for 16 projects aimed at developing new technologies to prevent cyberattacks and reduce energy disruptions from cyber incidents. […]

The White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) released a report today calling on the technical community to proactively reduce the attack surface in cyberspace by adopting memory safe programming languages and developing better cyber diagnostics. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and FBI published a joint fact sheet on Feb. 21 outlining the top cybersecurity actions water and wastewater systems sector (WWS) entities can take to improve their cyber resiliency. […]

President Biden signed a new executive order (EO) today that looks to strengthen the cybersecurity of our nation’s ports, as well as bolster maritime cybersecurity and supply chains more generally. […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI, along with the U.K. National Crime Agency’s (NCA) Cyber Division and other international law enforcement partners, announced today that they have disrupted the LockBit ransomware group – one of the most active ransomware groups in the world. […]

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. – chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, IT, and Government Innovation – is probing the General Services Administration’s (GSA) chief information officer (CIO) after the agency’s inspector general (IG) found that it had purchased Chinese-manufactured videoconference cameras with known security vulnerabilities.  […]

The government’s move to zero trust security is picking up speed, with Federal agencies facing an Office of Management and Budget deadline to meet specific zero trust goals by the end of fiscal year 2024. Peter Romness specializes in just this type of situation: the cybersecurity principal in the CISO Advisor’s Office at Cisco Systems has been helping government customers achieve their missions for nearly 35 years. In a recent interview with MeriTalk, Romness offered expert tips to agencies on how they can make faster progress – often with existing tools – in boosting cybersecurity and meeting the Federal mandates. […]

The U.S. government’s Zero Trust progress is paying off as organizations across the public and private sectors address Ivanti security breach risks.  […]

Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer (CIO) John Sherman has released new cybersecurity guidance on information sharing, best practices, and training for international partners looking to develop their cybersecurity standards and procedures. […]

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has introduced bipartisan legislation that aims to strengthen America’s workforce pipeline in artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and other critical technologies. […]

Who are your favorite Cyber Defenders – the security leaders both in the Federal government and tech industry who are going above and beyond in advancing the mission, leading cybersecurity modernization, and defending against threats? […]

The Pentagon’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in 2024 will begin to implement and start building out on actions it created solid foundations for last year, a top Defense Department (DoD) official said today. […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced a new bill on Feb. 7 that would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop cybersecurity guidelines for the Federal government’s use of drone vehicles. […]

Federal agencies called on all organizations today to urgently implement a series of cybersecurity actions after discovering that a Chinese-based hacking group has compromised the IT environments of multiple U.S. critical infrastructure organizations – with the end goal of a future cyberattack. […]

Top IT experts at the Departments of Treasury and Veterans Affairs (VA) said that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) program holds a lot of promise, but is “still in its infancy” with program kinks to be worked out. […]

MeriTalk’s mixologists are giving the artist formerly known as Cyber Smoke a new shake. As of 2024, the bi-monthly power networking event is called MeriTalk Tech Tonic. […]

Federal agencies have until the end of the day to shut down two widely used software products due to major cybersecurity vulnerabilities. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) today approved two bills related to cybersecurity and software – the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Competition Act and the Source Code Harmonization And Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) Act. […]

A new white paper advocates for improved information sharing among private sector firms, stressing the need for timely, relevant, and detailed threat information to mitigate cyberattacks, aid in system recovery, and enhance the resilience of commercial networks. […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to flip the cyber threat landscape paradigm by helping defenders better mitigate future threats, a senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said on Thursday. […]

Former Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) senior staffer Jeff Rothblum has landed a new cyber leadership position at the White House. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) Inspector General (IG) has found that the acquisition agency in 2022 purchased Chinese-manufactured videoconference cameras with known security vulnerabilities. […]

The Defense Department (DoD) is in the process of sifting through options to develop the next iteration of the military’s cyber forces, a senior Pentagon official said on Jan. 17. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive today requiring agencies to mitigate “widespread and active exploitation” of vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure VPN and Policy Secure network access control appliances. […]

The government’s latest Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development (R&D) Strategic Plan is placing human-centered cybersecurity at the forefront of the nation’s cyber research and development activities and investments for the next four years. […]

The Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) today announced a $30 million funding opportunity to support the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of next generation tools to protect clean energy delivery infrastructure from cyberattacks. […]

The Aspen Institute’s US and Global Cybersecurity Groups released a new report on Tuesday that offers up recommendations on how to safely use AI in cybersecurity and steers organizations toward a “good place” where AI predominantly helps defenders. […]

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that Federal agencies’ implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) continued to be mostly ineffective in recent years, and it calls on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop better metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of FISMA. […]