The Commonwealth of Texas has earned the dubious honor of being the latest state or local government hit by a successful ransomware attack. The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) confirmed on Aug. 16 that at least 23 local government entities were hit by a “coordinated” ransomware attack. DIR said it will lead the cybersecurity response to the attack. […]
Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Ohio State University, with National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, developed an automated system to vet cloud servers and software library systems to bolster mobile app security. […]
U.S. Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly announced last week that the Navy will restructure the service branch’s CIO position, including having the CIO concurrently serve as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. […]
Principle Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence Kari Bingen, has sad that the security clearance backlog has been cut in half after a high point of 725,000 in April 2018. […]
The Federal government saw a 12 percent reduction in cybersecurity incidents in fiscal year 2018, and no “major” cybersecurity incidents for the year, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s annual report on the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA). […]
A significant percentage of surveyed working adults do not grasp or implement basic cybersecurity concepts and practices, according to Proofpoint’s recently released 2018 User Risk Report. […]
While “large impactful [cyber] incidents” are on the rise, there are fewer “high-profile public disclosures,” according to a FireEye’s year’s M-Trends 2019 Report, which is based on FireEye Mandiant’s investigations of the most interesting and impactful cyberattacks of 2018. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hopes to test Accelerate – the first block-chain based program in the Federal government to get an authority-to-operate – in the coming fall and rollout the portal fully in the beginning of 2020. […]
The Department of Energy (DoE) upgraded its Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) to help measure how organizations effectively protect themselves from cyber threats. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in partnership with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), announced on Aug. 14 the release of the 2019 National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) Toolkit. […]
A cyber threat landscape report released today found that the shifting cyber landscape has led threat actors to adjust operations strategically, operationally, and technically. […]
For harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, Federal agencies are focusing attention on “low-hanging fruit,” or easily solvable problems, as a strategic approach to utilizing the emerging technologies. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is progressing with its cloud strategy, and the agency’s components are leading the way in cloud migration, DHS Cloud Action Officer Kshemendra Paul said at FCW’s Smart Cloud, Smart Government workshop today. […]
Despite a downtick in number of states using paperless voting equipment since 2016, eight states are still expected to use paperless machines in the 2020 election, according to an Aug. 13 Brennan Center for Justice report. […]
TechNet President and CEO Linda Moore wrote the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Aug. 12 to raise concerns with the current draft of the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a new mobile application called VA Launchpad to save veterans and caregivers time online. […]
Hybrid cloud innovation is driving the data revolution and, the new data landscape will need its experts to power the future of the Federal agency data revolution. […]
A Federal hiring freeze ordered in a January 2017 presidential memo resulted in “significant” staffing reductions across the State Department – including the inability to fill two Senior Executive Service cybersecurity positions, which then delayed implementing an enterprise risk management program for IT systems. […]
The Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative announced that it has launched a new online tool to measure the level of networks’ MANRS compliance called the MANRS Observatory. […]
FireEye announced that it was able to identify a new Chinese hacker group, which they have labeled as Advanced Persistent Threat group 41 – or APT41. […]
The Army Futures Command (AFC) is currently developing new wearable identity authentication and authorization technologies, according to an Aug. 7 press release. […]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a plan on Aug. 10 to prioritize Federal agency engagement in developing standards for artificial intelligence (AI), just before the deadline of an executive order issued in February that gave the agency 180 days to develop a plan. […]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking to both expand facial recognition capabilities in its vetting of international travelers and migrate its traveler-processing technology to the cloud, according to an Aug. 8 CBP solicitation. […]
While the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is here to stay for Federal agencies, taking proper approaches to data classification, collection, and analysis are key components to optimizing the program’s aims, security experts said last week at MeriTalk’s Cyber Security Brainstorm event. […]
In a letter on Aug. 7, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote to telecom giants AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon and urged them to store less sensitive customer data. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is putting together a single contract vehicle that will award multiple vendors to manage DHS’ 17 unclassified security operations centers (SOCs). […]
As agencies move to the cloud and secure their data there, meeting the new challenges with innovative solutions is a great opportunity – as long as agencies abide by existing security baselines, said Federal IT leaders during MeriTalk’s Cybersecurity Brainstorm. […]
John Felker, who last month was named assistant director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Integrated Operations Division (IOD), on Thursday discussed IOD’s plans to integrate operations of CISA’s three primary component organizations in order to produce better cyber threat data intelligence that will include inputs from Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) programs implemented by Federal agencies. […]
FBI Cyber Readiness, Outreach, and Intelligence Branch Deputy Assistant Director Tonya Ugoretz stressed at today’s MeriTalk Cyber Security Brainstorm that robust and resilient Federal cybersecurity requires collaboration across agencies and non-government partners. […]
The Federal Acquisition Regulation will ban agencies from procuring equipment from five Chinese companies, including Huawei and ZTE, starting August 13, according to an interim rule published August 7. […]