DoD passes on VistA, resumes plans to procure commercial EHR
The Defense Department is moving forward with plans to acquire a commercial EHR solution. "There are good reasons for VA to have selected its legacy system," wrote Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a May 21 memo. "However, many of these reasons do not apply to DoD."
Grant: NSTIC will succeed where other programs have failed
CAMBRIDGE, Md.--The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace will succeed where other federal attempts at offering the public a common online identity have not, said Jeremy Grant, senior executive advisor for identity management at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Grant spoke May 21 during a panel session during the annual ACT-IAC Management of Change conference.
CBP OIT adjusts to tough times with shared services
CAMBRIDGE, Md.--Radical budget cuts amounting to about a 50 percent reduction over 4 years forced Customs and Border Protection to use shared and cloud services to a degree previously unthinkable, said CBP Chief Technology Officer Wolfe Tombe while speaking during a panel session of the annual ACT-IAC Management of Change conference.
Digital Government Strategy: The final countdown
Thursday, May 23 marks the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration's unveiling of the Digital Government Strategy, and with that milestone comes an array of deliverables that are due under the strategy. FierceGovernmentIT has compiled an at-a-glance scorecard to assess what's complete, what's missing and to what degree things changed since the plan rolled out last May.
Commerce CISO: Cybersecurity is about more than technology
"Technology doesn't always carry the day when you need to present a program to a set of executives in a federated organization," said Commerce Department Chief Information Security Officer Rod Turk during a May 20 panel discussion at ACT-IAC's Management of Change Conference in Cambridge, Md. Department CISOs and the teams that support them have to coordinate with an array of stakeholders.
DoD business architecture lacks detail, says GAO
Despite at least $379 million spent over a decade by the Defense Department to establish a business enterprise architecture, the DoD has yet to show that it's using that architecture as intended, says the Government Accountability Office.
Warrant requirements for police drone use debated
A tenet of fair information practice principles is that organizations should only collect personally identifiable information for a specified purpose--whether that should translate into a warrant requirement for government use of unmanned aerial vehicles took up large parts of a May 17 House hearing.
DHS cyber has problems with hiring, not retention, says Stempfley
Departures at the executive level have garnered some attention in recent years starting with the departure in fall 2011 of Sean McGurk, then the head of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center. "What does it say about the department's cyber organization when it cannot retain its senior cyber leadership as well?" said Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).
Federal judge rules in favor of FBI use of stingray
A federal judge in Arizona says the FBI can use evidence collected by a device that masquerades as a cellular base tower, triggering an automatic register response from nearby devices and routing communications from those devices through it.
Data security isn't just for the intel community, says Commerce CIO
Many people think data security is only an issue for the Defense Department, the intelligence community or the Homeland Security Department, said Commerce CIO Simon Szykman while speaking May 14 at the FOSE conference in Washington, D.C. "Even if the confidentiality of the data is not key, the long-term integrity of the data is," he said.
Public says critical infrastructure cybersecurity framework should be risk-based, says NIST
An analysis of comments received so far by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to the cybersecurity framework called for by President Obama's February cybersecurity executive order shows respondents so far show risk management approaches to be a matter of nearly universal concern.
House Appropriations proposes $786 million DHS cybersecurity budget
The House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee fiscal 2014 spending bill, to be marked up by the subcommittee May 16, proposes spending $786 million for Homeland Security Department cybersecurity operations, says a committee statement. That amount would total $24 million below the White House request and $30 million above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level, the committee adds.
VanRoekel: Open data may require additional infrastructure investment
During a May 15 press briefing, Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel acknowledged there could be downstream infrastructure costs associated with successful data liberation. These costs will be dealt with on an individual basis, said VanRoekel.
Holder defends seizure of journalists' phone records; Using big data to predict cyber attacks;
Auditors uncover IT vulnerabilities at EPA Office of Research Division facilities
Environmental Protection Agency auditors say information technology controls at Office of Research Division research facilities need improvement following an assessment of five facilities that uncovered vulnerabilities such as unsecured workstations.
Benefits of brandishing cyber weapons not obvious, says Rand paper
The Cold War staple of deterrence through brandishing weapon capabilities is far more complex when it comes to the cyber domain, notes a Rand scientist in a paper commissioned by the office of the secretary of defense.
Savings from data center consolidation unclear, likely minimal so far
Savings so far from federal data center consolidation are difficult to estimate for their lack of reporting, but are "believed to be minimal" as of last November--nearly 3 years after the Office of Management and Budget launched an initiative to reduce the number of federal data centers by 40 percent--says the GAO.
White House warns of open data mosaic effect
Beyond asking agencies to guard against the release of data with personally-identifiable information, the Open Data Policy published by the White House May 9 directs agencies to account for the "mosaic effect" of data aggregation. The mosaic effect occurs when information alone is not identifiable but when coupled with other available information poses a privacy or security risk.
GitHub tool kit covers nuts and bolts of White House Open Data Policy
Along with its Open Data Policy, the White House unveiled May 9 Project Open Data, a GitHub-hosted tool kit it hopes will be the living, breathing implementation arm of its policy. The online repository provides tools for coders to adopt the policy within agencies' 6-month timeline.
DoD proposes to lower spending on major ERPs, with notable exceptions
Spending for major key enterprise resource planning systems would overall go down, with some notable exceptions, under the Defense Department fiscal 2014 budget proposal. DoD OCIO data shows some ERP budgets would increase substantially should Congress approve the request.
