News

196 federal data centers to be shuttered in fiscal 2013

The federal government plans to close 196 data centers in fiscal 2013 according to newly-released figures posted May 11 to data.gov.

Most recent address data not necessarily the best for Census, say auditors

"We suspect shifting from a last-in model will likely encounter some resistance for fear that an address will be missed," auditors say.

Only vast majority of USCIS laptops updated and encrypted, say auditors

A random sampling of 287 laptops also found that only a vast majority of laptops currently in active use--93.5 percent--operated on the latest service pack of its operating system.

OIG: DHS CIO has little say over component IT budgets

Despite an ongoing and concerted effort to make the Homeland Security Department more cohesive, the DHS chief information officer is only viewing IT budget documents once they're submitted by components.

No accord on what 'cybersecurity' means in international affairs

Amid signs that cybersecurity increasingly is a matter for diplomacy as well as technology, the European Union information technology agency notes that there is no common international understanding of the term.

Spotlight: FedRAMP accredits third-party assessment organizations

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, on May 14 named nine third-party assessment organizations, or 3PAOs, that will assess and test cloud computing vendors' security controls.

DoD enterprise architecture to serve as the foundation for forthcoming iEHR

The enterprise architecture established by the Military Health System's electronic health record way ahead, will serve as the basis of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments' integrated electronic health record, known as the iEHR.

ISPs actively scan defense contractor Internet traffic under DoD program

The traffic scanning program, said Eric Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy has been underway for a year with "a few dozen" companies participating in it.

Spires: DHS reducing redundancy

"It turns out, if you count it up--and we have--…we actually have 117 different screenings that we do," said DHS CIO Richard Spires.

Audio: Richard Spires speaks at AFECA NOVA

Richard Spires, chief information officer of the Homeland Security Department, spoke May 11 during an event put on by AFECA-NOVA in Tysons Corner, Va. Click below on the media player to listen to his...

DISA eyes BYOD mobility strategy

The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to stand up a bring your own device, or BYOD, mobile policy for personnel connecting to unclassified networks, according to a slide deck (.pdf) presented...

TIGTA: Moar virtualization!

A March 30 inspector general audit on server virtualization at the Internal Revenue Service is the rare report where the main complaint is that the agency hasn't more aggressively expanded a successful project.

Americans less concerned about Internet security

Americans are more concerned about national security and financial security than Internet security and the security of their personal information, according to a report published May 9. Still,...

Navy releases NGEN RFP

The 5 year, $4.5 billion solcitation for land-based network operations and management calls for up to 134,000 thin client machines.NGEN will replace the Continuity-Of-Service Contract, the federal government's largest network management program.

SSA needs a plan for IT modernization, says GAO

In June 2011, the SSA commissioner moved all major functions of the chief information officer to the office of systems. The GAO says SSA never conducted detailed analysis to inform its realignment decisions.

Mueller: Tech companies should make products that can be wiretapped

Mueller said Internet-based and other technology firms "are very wealthy…they can afford to do it." "It" being implementation of means to tap electronic exchanges.

Close to 70% of U.S. embassies tweet

Several embassies appear to still be assessing whether or not their Twitter account is an "official" communication channel.

Cyber threat sharing needs guarantees, says Rand researcher

The information sharing effort studies by Rand involved European telecommunication firms operating under a model whereby government involvement was limited to acting as a neutral third party provider of an information sharing platform. Essentially, he said, the public sector provided a meeting room but little more.

DOD will miss 2015 goal for managing assets by UID, says GAO

As of April 2012, neither the Air Force nor the Navy are actively integrating item unique identifiers into their ERPs, the GAO says.

Sandia offers framework for characterizing cyber threats

In a proposed matrix, the columns describe possible attributes of a threat, while the rows define the threat's ability to act upon each attribute.