Charles Phalen, director of the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), said Sunday in an appearance on Government Matters that his organization has been working with the Defense Department since December 2017 to shift the entirety of its operations over to DoD, long ahead of a coming executive order from President Trump that will make the move official. […]

employee misconduct caution tape

The Government Accountability Office released a report Wednesday that says the Federal government needs to provide more reliable data on employee misconduct, and suggested that Federal managers need better training to ensure that inappropriate employee behavior is dealt with appropriately. […]

Charles Phalen, director of the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), said today at an event hosted by NextGov and Equifax that he supports a proposal in the President’s government reform and reorganization plan to move NBIB “in its entirety from the Office of Personnel Management into the Department of Defense.” […]

Federal IT leaders discussed the ways their organizations are tackling the proliferation of more and more endpoints on Federal networks at MeriTalk’s Cyber Security Brainstorm Thursday. In particular, ever-increasing mobile connectivity is creating the potential for further headaches, but the officials advised that next-gen technologies and proper network and data governance provide avenues to expand the ways employees work without compromising security at the network edge. […]

While some aspects of the Trump administration’s government agency reorganization proposal released in June have flown into moderate headwinds in Congress over jurisdictional and workforce issues, the proposal found a friendlier–if still somewhat cautious–audience at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees’ subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Thursday. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) on Tuesday approved by voice vote a bill which would allow Federal agency heads to limit access to certain websites or deploy cybersecurity measures if they feel that it is necessary to secure their IT systems, but not before strong vocal dissent about the scope of the legislation. […]

Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said Monday in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., that DoJ reached a premature conclusion in stating that stolen personal information used in a credit fraud case in Virginia was acquired from the 2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach. […]

Federal agencies are expected to begin implementing new enforcement policies today related to President Trump’s three workforce executive orders (EO) signed on May 25. […]

A bipartisan group of Federal lawmakers on Monday filed an amicus brief in support of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)–the largest Federal government employee union–who recently sued President Trump over his Federal workforce executive orders (EO) issued on May 25. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report Thursday that found many Federal agencies are not entirely up to speed in classifying members of their cybersecurity workforce, although many of them have traveled well down the road toward compliance. […]

Tony Scott was the Federal government’s third chief information officer, serving the nation in that role from 2015 through early 2017. During his time at the helm of government-wide IT, Scott led the development of 2016’s State of Federal IT Report, which left a lasting roadmap for modernization progress in the Federal government. […]

cyber workforce

The current cybersecurity workforce shortage in the United States is daunting and only due to get worse over the next few years, the Departments of Commerce (DoC) and Homeland Security (DHS) reported to President Trump in a document released Wednesday. […]

Federal agencies might not meet the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) data center closure goals, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Based on current projections, only 7,221 of the 12,062 data centers that agencies reported in August 2017 will be closed by September of this year. […]

Email is a core network application for both the private sector the and government, and has become an essential business communication tool. Since email is nearly ubiquitous and often poorly secured, it also has become a vector for fraud and data theft. Phishing emails can compromise not only Federal networks and databases, but also trust in government communications. […]

The Office of Personnel Management released the Federal Human Capital Business Reference Model (HCBRM), a tool that establishes a common human resource (HR) experience for Federal employees across agencies. The HCBRM provides a simplified view of operational functions and policy ownership and a common structure intended to align HR operations, finance, and acquisition. […]

Jeff T.H. Pon, the nominee for director of the Office of Personnel Management, said that his top priority for the agency will be IT modernization. “Outside of work, Federal employees are able to access nearly any piece of information they need, from their bank accounts to student loans to car insurance, all on their phone,” he said. “We need to work toward providing the employees of the Federal government with the same conveniences with regards to their employment within the Federal government, with appropriate attention to information security.” […]

The Office of Personnel Management named David Garcia its new chief information officer, agency officials confirmed to MeriTalk. Garcia started at OPM on Oct. 2. Garcia has also served as the chief of information technology for the State of Maryland and secretary of the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) from 2015 to 2017. Garcia oversaw […]

Acting Office of Personnel Management Director Kathy McGettigan announced that Rob Leahy will serve as OPM’s acting CIO. OPM CIO David DeVries departs Sept. 2 for a new role. […]

Office of Personnel Management CIO Dave Devries will be leaving his position effective Sept. 2 due to family considerations, an OPM spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. DeVries joined OPM in August 2016. […]

Federal agencies must identify and code vacant civilian positions with information technology and cybersecurity functions by April 18 to ease the hiring process of new cybersecurity professionals. The Office of Personnel Management will check in with agencies in May to confirm that coding procedures are established and in place. […]

Though lessons learned from the Office of Personnel Management data breach have resulted in many improvements in cybersecurity practices, the 2015 breach and subsequent cyber incidents led members at a House Oversight Committee hearing to question the pace of Federal data protection efforts. “Right now it is an uphill fight,” said Department of Defense CIO Terry Halvorsen. […]

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