Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., has revised his cybersecurity bill “to try carrots instead of sticks as we begin to improve our cyber defenses,” he said. The bill has the endorsement of President Obama, who, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal Thursday, urged the Senate to pass the bill so he could sign it into law. Under the bill, owners of critical infrastructure — such as dams, energy and water systems — would voluntarily show they meet certain cybersecurity practices through a third-party verification or certification. By volunteering, they would be eligible for benefits, such as liability protections in the…
Browsing: Information Technology
A new virtual hub is searching for federal experts to help agencies with source code sharing tools, web hosting challenges and related issues. As part of the Digital Government Strategy released in May, the General Services Administration stood up the Digital Services Innovation Center. GSA’s Gwynne Kostin is leading the center’s efforts. “The center will work with agencies to establish shared solutions and training to support infrastructure and content needs across the federal government,” including video captioning and language translation, according to a blog post by federal chief information officer Steven VanRoekel. “The Innovation Center will support agencies lacking these capabilities, not supersede agencies’…
The Defense Department will expand its use of cloud computing through a four-step plan, which includes incentivizing DoD components to use shared cloud services and training acquisition professionals to procure cloud technologies. DoD’s Cloud Computing Strategy released Wednesday outlines a phased approach for adopting both commercial and government-provided cloud solutions. According to the strategy, DoD will: – Foster adoption of departmentwide cloud services through an outreach campaign to increase the number of cloud consumers and providers. – Optimize data center consolidation by eliminating duplicative software and providing information technology services, hosted in the data centers, in a standard way. – Incorporate cloud hardware…
The Defense Information Systems Agency will play a major role in deciding how the Defense Department adopts cloud computing services and products. DISA will serve as the department’s enterprise cloud service broker, which means all DoD components must acquire government or industry-provided cloud services using DISA, according to a June 26 memo from DoD chief information officer Teresa Takai that was released Wednesday. The only exception is to obtain a waiver from a review authority designated by Takai. DISA will work on behalf of the department to manage the use, performance and delivery of cloud services and negotiate contracts between cloud…
Federal officials unveiled details of a new public-private partnership aimed at speeding industry’s development of secure information technology products. The new National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) launched in February is a project of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It aims to bring companies together to create and discuss security management solutions that can be used by agencies and private companies. Acting Executive Director Donna Dodson on Tuesday said NCCoE’s vision is to provide a world-class collaborative environment for integrating cybersecurity solutions that stimulate economies and national economic groups. Initially, the center will focus on adopting secure…
Science Applications International Corp. is protesting a $4.6 billion award to Lockheed Martin to support the Defense Information Systems Network. The protest was filed June 22 with the Government Accountability Office. GAO will issue a decision on the protest by Oct. 1. “We are disappointed in the government’s decision to not award us the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Global Information Grid (GIG) Services Management (GSM) contract. We feel our solution is the best value for the customer and we are proud of our performance history on this contract,” SAIC spokeswoman Melissa Koskovich said in a statement. Lockheed Martin Corp. beat out incumbent SAIC…
The best government would be one where citizens would “never have to visit a government website again,” according to Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel. VanRoekel and Federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park attended an industry event Wednesday where they reiterated a strategy for connecting the public to federal data. “Part of our goal for inspiring this way of innovation is to bring government innovation and government technology to citizens where they are, where they play, where they act, anytime, anywhere on any device,” VanRoekel said. “Data that is public should be made public, to drive the social side, the civic participation…
The U.S. Special Counsel on Wednesday warned that agencies could be reprimanded for targeting whistleblowers and monitoring emails that report wrongdoing. In the memo, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said that targeting emails between whistleblowers and the OSC or inspectors general for surveillance is “highly problematic.” Agencies that deliberately target whistleblowers’ submissions or draft submissions to OSC or IGs could be accused of retaliating against the employees, Lerner said. “This is the first finding that we are aware of in which a government agency has stated that there are limits on how federal agencies can monitor employee email,” Stephen Kohn, executive…
Lockheed Martin Corp. has won a multi-billion contract to support the Defense Information Systems Network, beating out incumbent Science Applications International Corp. The contract, to provide daily operations and sustainment of the Defense Department’s global data network, has a ceiling of $4.6 billion over seven years — three base years and two two-year option years. Lockheed is teaming with AT&T, ACS, Serco, BAE Systems, ManTech and others. “As information is produced and consumed at speeds and volumes that were once unimaginable, our warfighters need an enterprise architecture that can be quickly adapted and enhanced for new technologies while effectively managing…
New guidance from the White House seeks to get agencies to break “bloated, multi-year” projects for information technology acquisitions into more manageable chunks that can be delivered quickly and for less money. Lengthy acquisition and IT development efforts to deliver massive new systems over years lead to projects that wasted billions of dollars and arrived years behind schedule, Joe Jordan, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, and Steven VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer, said in a June 14 blog post. By the time some projects launched, technology was obsolete, the officials wrote. The guidance is meant to show IT, acquisition, finance and…