The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) received a mostly positive Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) audit from its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) this year, but the agency still needs to fill some security gaps – such as improving its IT security training program. […]

Panasonic Connect North America recently announced a new collaboration with Red Hat to certify its TOUGHBOOK laptops and tablets on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. […]

The Peace Corps – an independent Federal agency that dispatches volunteers around the world – has made “significant progress” in enhancing its information security posture over the past year, but it is “falling short” of meeting what the White House defines as an “effective level of security.” […]

The U.S. Army announced on Wednesday that it has awarded the $249 million Automated Installation Entry (AIE) Next Generation contract to Leidos to enhance security at 92 additional Army and select joint-service installation physical access control points around the world. […]

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) robotic process automation (RPA) program has helped the agency to reduce repetitive administrative tasks, but a new report from the GSA Office of Inspector General (OIG) finds that the security of the program needs significant improvement. […]

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is looking for public feedback on a proposed set of metrics that would measure the end-to-end FedRAMP authorization experience. […]

Federal CIO Clare Martorana forecasted this week that the hundreds of millions of dollars of investments that the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) has made in recent years to jumpstart Federal agency security improvements will be bearing fruit within the next 12 months. […]

The National Security Agency (NSA) issued a cybersecurity information sheet (CIS) on Monday to share best practices for deploying secure and resilient AI systems. […]

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) announced two new investments today totaling over $47 million that will help NASA and the Department of Labor (DoL) address security vulnerabilities and update legacy technology. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced that David Cattler will take over as the next director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), which handles most of the Federal government’s personnel security vetting tasks. His first day on the job will be March 24. […]

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) La Monte Yarborough said on Monday that upgrading outdated IT systems and bolstering security efforts is crucial to improving public trust and user experience (UX). […]

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Information and Technology (OIT) is planning for a major IT contract that will support systems used by its Cargo Systems Program Directorate (CSPD). […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is pushing agencies to implement security measures to protect their cloud computing services against cyberattacks, following the July hack of Federal agency cloud-based email accounts by China-based threat actors. […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Labor (DoL), and the Department of Treasury have not fully applied cloud security practices, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]

The IRS’s Enterprise Case Management (ECM) System failed to meet all established cloud security requirements identified in reviews stretching back to 2021, according to a recent report from the Treasury Department’s Inspector General (IG). […]

The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) has published new outlines with best practice ideas for Federal agencies when they are developing and structuring IT planning documents across a range of priorities. […]

As Federal agencies and the private sector improve their uses of mobile technology, they must also improve security along with it, according to Ann Dunkin, chief information officer (CIO) at the Department of Energy (DoE). […]

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) released the first-ever supply chain security standard (SCS 9001), developed specifically to aid the information and communications technology (ICT) industry.  […]

Data experts Eileen Vidrine, chief data officer (CDO) at the U.S. Air Force, and Jeremy Wilson, multi-factor authentication statewide program manager for the State of Texas, gathered on Oct. 19 at the Dell Technologies North America Forum to share their insights on data protection measures and the importance of keeping data secure. […]

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) puts veterans’ sensitive information and facility security at risk by not following requirements about documenting personal identity verification (PIV) cards returned by contract personnel. […]

Reps. Bill Foster, D-Ill., John Katko, R-N.Y., Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., have introduced legislation that aims to modernize the United States’ digital identity infrastructure and protect Americans from having their personal information stolen. […]

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is looking to improve its airport screening technology – and its use of machine learning within that technology – in an effort to make the process easier and faster for travelers while enhancing security effectiveness. […]

Although zero trust has become a bit of a buzzword in the IT world, experts agree that zero trust is “foundational” to all security approaches and that foundation needs to continue to grow in tandem with emerging tech. […]

The advent of new leadership in the White House and the still-unfolding impact of the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products are leading to a fresh consideration of options to improve Federal cybersecurity, panelists said on Feb. 9 at the Resiliency Colloquium event organized by MeriTalk, ACT-IAC, and the Partnership for Public Service. […]

While 82 percent of Federal IT managers surveyed by MeriTalk agree that the amount of streaming data their agency manages is on the rise, 59 percent also said that their agency is struggling to secure its data consistently between on-premises and cloud. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lacked the IT systems necessary to accurately track migrant families separated under the agency’s Zero Tolerance Policy, according to a DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report released on Nov. 25. […]

A spotty risk management strategy, along with poor security control assessment procedures, are undermining the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)’s ability to identify and detect network security threats, according to an FDIC Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report released on Oct. 23. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office Inspector General (OIG) discovered in a July 31 report that a VA healthcare facility in Long Beach, California, failed to adhere to VA and Veterans Health Administration (VHA) privacy and security policies in the midst of a patient electronic health record (EHR) complication. […]

The IRS should continue improving its electronic authentication security controls to better protect public-facing applications, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) said in a report last week. […]

Security is the great white whale of Federal IT–even as we make progress, it is just out of reach. Late last month, Zscaler announced it had prioritized rigorous security standards by achieving the Service Organization Control (SOC) 2, Type II Certification. […]