Theodore N. Nemeroff has been named director for International Cyber Policy on the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). He will be responsible for expanding the U.S. government’s information and communications technology policy abroad. […]
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Cyber
If 2020 was the year of the pandemic, then 2021 is shaping up as the year of the Big Hack. […]
For decades, Federal chief information security officers (CISOs) focused on protecting a traditional perimeter and the users within. Today, however, they recognize that there are a seemingly endless number of third-party partners, vendors, and customer accounts, as well as service accounts – accounts which are either not directly tied to employees, or non-human accounts– which could result in compromises. […]
A secure software supply chain has become essential to fulfilling government missions. Massive cyberattacks like SolarWinds highlight the serious risks to the enterprise that insecure software can create. […]
Cyberthreats are constantly evolving. There are new attackers, new vulnerabilities, and new security risks that are arising every day. Threat hackers have rapidly increased their sophistication and techniques that make them harder to spot and threaten even the savviest targets. Criminal groups are also targeting businesses that have moved their infrastructure to the cloud. This way, they can hide among legitimate services. Attackers have developed new ways to scour the internet for systems vulnerable to ransomware. […]
The Senate voted late on June 8 to approve the much-amended U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, by a margin of 68-32. […]
The Department of Labor (DoL) recently released new guidelines on protecting $9.3 trillion in retirement benefits for over 34 million participants in contribution plans by making sure proper cybersecurity best practices are in place. […]
President Biden is proposing $2.1 billion of funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with large scoops of cyber funding for other Federal agencies, according to the White House’s FY 2022 request for discretionary funding released today. […]
Ian Wallace has joined the State Department to serve as a senior advisor for the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues (S/CCI). Wallace tweeted that his new role will focus on cyber capacity building. […]
The Department of State had notified Congress in 2019 of its plans to create a bureau within the department to focus on cybersecurity, but a lack of data and evidence to justify the proposal may halt its progress. […]
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidance on Federal workforce rotational cybersecurity assignments envisions 120-day rotation assignments to other agencies, and lists several programs that rotations may run through, according to a Nov. 18 memo to agency heads from Michael Rigas, Acting Director of OPM. […]
The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a new information memorandum that IT Acquisition, and Project Management and Cyber Threats, remain from the previous year as two of five management and performance challenges for the agency. […]
With a growing cyber workforce gap, Federal agencies need to get creative as they work to shore up their cyber defenses. What skillsets are most valuable for incoming cyber workers? And how can Federal agencies find talent in surprising places and nurture the talent they already have? […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to affect organizations across the United States, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) warned of common trends and attack vectors that are being used by malicious actors for financial or informational gain. […]
Across the Federal government, said Peter Ranks, deputy CIO for the information enterprise at the Department of Defense (DoD), and Jeanette Manfra, former assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, more holistic IT modernization is necessary both during and following government’s reliance on widespread telework. […]
Jim Sullivan, defense intelligence officer (DIO) for cyber at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), emphasized the value of offensive operations in cyberspace to deter nation-state attackers during a panel discussion this week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. […]
A group of public sector cybersecurity leaders, speaking on a panel Feb. 24 at the RSA Public Sector Day event, discussed the challenge of reconciling competing priorities when assessing both the business value and mission value of cybersecurity investments. […]
Donna Dodson, Chief Cybersecurity Advisor for the IT Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), reflected today on the success of the agency’s cybersecurity framework and its contributions to cyber interoperability. […]
A National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) draft report on a new program to standardized and centralize cybersecurity regulations is now open for public comment. […]
Alongside a Federal employee pay raise and $25 million for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), the bipartisan and bicameral Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal includes IT funding boosts across agencies with an emphasis on cybersecurity. […]
The House Appropriations Committee released a second of five appropriations minibus FY2020 spending bills for Commerce-Justice-Science, Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development. […]
The latest batch of priority open recommendations released April 11 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls out existing IT and cybersecurity issues at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the IRS. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said today that cybersecurity-related spending is due to rise by five percent in FY2020 on a government-wide basis under President Trump’s FY2020 budget proposal. […]
A Federal data breach disclosure law, which would require companies to report data breaches to customers within 30 days, will be reintroduced this year, according to Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) is seeking Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF) applications for fiscal year 2019, according to a broad agency announcement released Friday. […]
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, made a spirited plea today for Federal government and private sector organizations to take additional steps to address cybersecurity and include operations at all levels in an “enterprise-wide security apparatus.” […]
A new memo from the Office of Personnel Management offers new hiring authorities to agencies in key STEM-field areas, including cybersecurity related jobs. […]
The latest edition of the Army’s annual Cyber X-Games exercise is designed to let Reserve and other cyber warriors team up to train in dealing with real-world situations. It is focused on protecting U.S. infrastructure, an area somewhat outside the norm for the exercises, but one that reflects an emerging potential battleground on the cyber landscape. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen emphasized at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing this week the importance of shoring up United States cyber defenses, and said that effort would be helped by adequate funding and reorganization of a key DHS department. […]
In a previously announced move, the Pentagon elevated the U.S. Cyber Command to a full unified command. This reflects the universal role cyber operations–and potential cyber threats–have come to play across the range of military activities, and how relatively quickly virtual technologies have changed the game. […]