The Veterans Affairs Department has expanded its information technology oversight program designed to weed out underperforming IT projects to include all of the agency’s 282 projects. The program management and accountability system – PMAS – will be used to evaluate and restart or terminate all VA IT projects. The change was effective Feb. 15 but announced by VA’s Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology Roger Baker at a House Veterans Affairs Committee subcommittee on oversight and investigations hearing Feb. 23. Using the system to evaluate all of VA’s IT projects will give officials greater insight into how the projects are…
Browsing: Information Technology
Chinese and European hackers gained access to government computers at 10 federal agencies during a recently discovered malware attack. NetWitness, a Virginia-based private security firm, discovered the breaches at federal agencies and about 2,500 companies worldwide, and announced the findings in a Feb. 17 report. NetWitness did not disclose which agencies were attacked, but the malware appeared to be aimed more at gathering financial and personal login information from private corporations than state secrets. It affects computers running on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Affected computers are infected with a botnet named ZeuS, which collects and feeds the hackers personal information,…
We hear so much every day about the dire outlook for federal cybersecurity. Former Bush and Clinton administrations even held a war game scenario Tuesday showing how the current administration might respond to a devastating cyber attack. But John Gilligan, a noted federal cybersecurity consultant, says cybersecurity depends on us, the consumers, to demand security from our devices and developers. Our demand for new technology and new applications and software has resulted in an unstable cybersecurity environment, he said. Absolute security is unlikely with today’s devices, he told attendees at Wednesday’s Association for Federal Information Resources Management lunch in Washington,…
A cybersecurity attack will hit the nation’s computer systems at 10 a.m. Tuesday. That’s the scenario former senior administration officials will operate under Tuesday as they show how the government would respond to a potential cyber crisis. More than a dozen officials will participate in the exercise Tuesday at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., where they will illustrate tactics and processes government officials may use during a major cyber attack. The event is open to the media, and the Federal Times will cover it. The event is sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based policy think tank.…
Hackers defaced 49 U.S. House members’ Web sites hours after President Obama delivered his State of the Union address Dec. 28. The hackers took down all of the Web sites’ material, replacing it with a vulgar string of text: “F— OBAMA!! Red Eye CREW !!!!! O RESTO E HACKER !!! by HADES; m4V3RiCk; T4ph0d4 — FROM BRASIL.” National Journal screencapped the hacked site of Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo. Click here to see the image (strong language, may not be safe for your workplace). Most of the hacked Web sites are still down. The hackers hit sites belonging to both Democrats…
Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients wants to know how you’d improve the government’s IT systems. Obama administration officials, led by federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, met Jan. 14 with CEOs of companies such as United Airlines and Weyerhaeuser to discuss how to better employ technology to make agencies more efficient and responsive. Zients posted summaries of the executives’ recommendations on his Office of Management and Budget blog and invites readers to comment on the suggestions. Some of the recommendations include: Agencies should serve customers through their preferred channels, such as self-service online. Agencies should keep IT projects from…
President Barack Obama will officially name Howard Schmidt, President Bush’s former cybersecurity chief, as the White House “cyber czar,” the White House has confirmed. Schmidt spent about 18 months in the Bush administration, from December 2001 to May 2003, before returning to the private sector. He has also worked as Microsoft’s chief security officer, and eBay’s chief information officer; the White House says Schmidt’s close ties with industry were a factor in his appointment. The Washington Post first reported the news of Schmidt’s nomination last night. Schmidt was long considered one of the two front-runners for the job, which Obama…
I spent the morning in a Senate Commerce committee hearing on transportation security challenges. I’ve got a story on the hearing going up on the homepage soon: DHS secretary Janet Napolitano was the lone witness, and she spent a while talking about collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration employees. One other item of note that didn’t quite fit into the TSA story: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., offered a bit of insight into his thinking on cybersecurity. Rockefeller said he was worried about President Barack Obama’s plan to name a “cyber czar” — but, unlike other legislators, he’s not concerned…
The president has been accused of “dithering” on his Afghanistan strategy review. (Personally, I think he’s right to take his time: Escalating the war is not an easy decision, and when tens of thousands of soldiers are being sent into combat, better to take some extra time to get it right.) But that’s not the only important decision on which Obama has delayed. There’s also the question of appointing a “cyber czar,” a White House official to coordinate cybersecurity policy. Obama announced the new position in May, during a White House speech on cybersecurity, but the position has remained vacant…
BoingBoing, the self-proclaimed “directory of wonderful things,†points out an interesting exchange in a State Department town hall meeting Sec. Hillary Clinton and Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy held Friday. Here is what BoingBoing quoted from the meeting’s transcript: MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle: Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t…