Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

The Federal government isn’t known for its progressive approach to IT infrastructure, and agencies aren’t usually early tech adopters. Yet, agencies are increasingly deploying cutting-edge DevOps methodologies to achieve agility and reduce operating costs. […]

Acronyms abound with a seemingly endless stream of Federal IT regulations and guidelines related to cloud and cyber security. Trying to make sense of the madness? On March 8, at “Cyber Convergence: Security, the Cloud and Your Data,” Federal visionaries will crack the code on some of the most critical developments in government’s IT agenda – from cloud-based application security to MGT, FITARA, and more. […]

The Army and Navy recently announced that their Cyber Mission Teams were fully operational, and the U.S. Cyber Command now has all of their planned complement of 133 teams in business. With its people (totaling more than 6,000 service members and civilians) in place, U.S. cyber forces can now look to machines to help carry out effective operations in the cyber domain. […]

The U.S. Cyber Command will begin to exercise its newly granted acquisition authority by the end of 2017 with its first industry day on Oct. 27. Congress gave CYBERCOM its own ability to purchase technology capabilities in order to keep up with the constantly changing nature of the cybersecurity sphere. CYBERCOM plans to hold its industry day at the Arthur Lundahl Conference Center in Springfield, Va. […]

Another cyberattack with links to the stolen cache of National Security Agency materials is spreading across Europe on June 27, targeting banks, businesses, and a Ukraine power company. Infections have been reported in Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and India. […]

The revelation that the National Security Agency conducted blanket surveillance of spectators at the 2002 Olympic Games could hurt the agency’s chances of getting its surveillance laws renewed this year. Thomas Drake, former NSA executive, submitted a formal declaration on May 25 that revealed the NSA’s program Stellar Wind, the goal of which was to “collect and store virtually all electronic communication going in or out” of the Salt Lake City area. […]

A group of prominent technology companies wrote a letter to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asking Congress to reform the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The technology companies include Adobe, Amazon, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft. […]

A group of Delaware National Guard officers crowd around a computer as code flashes down the screen. One of them thinks he found a back door that will enable him to access the administrator credentials to the Naval Academy’s networks. Once they have the credentials, they can access the school’s “token,” a piece of classified information that the academy has been assigned to protect. […]

The hacker group, the Shadow Brokers released a password for alleged National Security Agency malware tools Saturday in protest of President Donald Trump’s policies. The Shadow Brokers first began selling NSA tools, which looked to be about three years old, in August, but nobody bought it for the requested $7,070,300 in bitcoin. Instead the Shadow […]

Harris received National Security Agency certification for its Harris Falcon III RF-300H wideband HF manpack radio system, which provides beyond-line-of-sight communications without a satellite for military personnel. […]

Weekend Reader

President Donald Trump mandated that agencies withhold privacy protections from people who aren’t U.S. citizens, which puts relationships with other countries at risk, according to a policy manager at Mozilla. […]

The Shadow Brokers, the hacker group that stole National Security Agency applications, are selling a package of Windows hacking tools. The group first began selling NSA tools, which looked to be about three years old, in August. The current software also dates back to three years ago. […]

What’s really behind President-elect Donald Trump’s very public rebuke of national intelligence agencies? It has very little to do with the intelligence collected on Russian hacking activities. What Americans are watching play out 140 characters at a time is a distasteful game of political retribution orchestrated by Trump’s pick for national security adviser, retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn. […]

CIA

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination for CIA director has advocated for mass data collection from U.S. citizens and has criticized Trump’s foreign policy strategies. Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., urged Congress to allow the National Security Agency to restart its bulk collection of metadata while adding that to financial and “lifestyle” information that would all be searchable in one database. […]

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination for United States attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., could have an impact on government surveillance power because of his full-fledged support of the National Security Agency’s spying authorities. […]

Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor responsible for leaking information about the U.S. government’s mass surveillance program in 2013, spoke about the impact that President-elect Donald Trump could have on online privacy: “What we need to start thinking about now is not how we defend against a President-elect Trump, but how we defend the rights of everyone everywhere.” […]

The hacker group the Shadow Brokers released files Monday alleging to show which foreign governments and organizations were under surveillance by the National Security Agency. The Shadow Brokers directly asked the U.S. government to pay for the remaining files to be returned. […]

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