Top officials from several private sector firms that are helping the Federal government modernize its technology and cybersecurity capabilities told MeriTalk that last week’s FITARA Scorecard gradings for the largest Federal agencies in several IT-driven categories are shining a necessary light on government’s need to make more progress in implementing longstanding cloud policy directives. […]

The Department of Commerce is looking to push cloud providers to supply more in-depth knowledge of their foreign customer base, as part of President Biden’s executive orders on AI and cybersecurity. […]

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics component is driving hard this year toward further adoption of cloud services and automation of security processes, the bureau’s chief information security officer (CISO) said during a Jan. 25 webinar organized by ATARC. […]

While the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed new guidance to overhaul the General Services Administration’s (GSA) FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) program in October 2023, a new watchdog report is pushing both agencies to move quickly to finalize new program rules. […]

The Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee (FSCAC) is looking to fill four open seats on its 15-member board that advises and provides recommendations to the General Services Administration (GSA) administrator, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Board, and Federal agencies.  […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for information that will support the agency’s Advanced Analytics Platform For Machine Learning (CAP-M) Project – a program under development at the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – to support new software and tools in a multi-tenant cloud environment. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) has named Eric Mill executive director for cloud strategy at GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS) organization. […]

The General Services Administration (GSA) is looking for feedback on the updated draft of its ASCEND cloud services blanket purchase agreement (BPA), which looks to set up the agency as a prime destination for cloud solutions for agencies throughout the government. […]

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) – a Department of Defense (DoD) component – has awarded Northrop Grumman a $700 million contract to provide a cloud and sensor solution to deliver faster intelligence to warfighters. […]

The importance of technology “observability” has been growing by “leaps and bounds” as Federal agencies continue their journeys to the cloud and strive to meet government mandates, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said on Dec. 12. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as part of its Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) program, released a series of nine security configuration baselines for Google Workspace today, including applications like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet.  […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) released a new capability this week that aims to improve the U.S. military’s situational awareness of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). […]

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) $9 billion multi-vendor cloud contract, the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), has made more than $260 million in task order awards as it approaches the one-year mark, a DoD official said on Nov. 14. […]

Federal agencies are looking to improve their cloud management practices with the help of the newly released Cloud Operations Best Practices and Resource Guide. […]

As Federal government agencies are fast-tracking their secure multi-cloud journeys, experts this week urged agencies to take a “trust, but verify” approach to cloud security, which may require a cultural change across organizations. […]

Top officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are getting first use of the department’s secret-level version of Microsoft 365 delivered in an Impact Level 6 (IL6) cloud environment – and aptly named DoD365-Secret – a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]

The U.S. Army is looking to hybrid and multi-cloud solutions so that it can move data and workloads seamlessly across clouds to achieve “data liquidity,” according to Young Bang, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army (ASA) for acquisitions, logistics and technology (ALT). […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the first two of three major cloud solicitations under its STRATUS program, taking the first steps toward creating a set of enterprise wide cloud contracts. […]

While Federal agencies showed an improving overall grading trend across a range of longstanding IT-related categories on the 16th version of the  FITARA Scorecard released today, coming additions to the scoring category lineup could create a changed and perhaps more challenging landscape for overall grades on future scorecards. […]

Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., introduced bipartisan legislation on Sept. 21 that aims to modernize and streamline the adoption of cloud computing technology in Federal agencies. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Hosting and Compute Center (HaCC) is turning to industry partners to help support the agency’s initiative to modernize and transform its data centers into hybrid cloud centers. […]

The Defense Department (DoD) needs to do a better job at tracking and reporting cloud computing data transfer user fees, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report out this week. […]

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said this week that its Electronic Records Archives (ERA 2.0) system will become available for records scheduling on Sept. 18. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., long a prime mover on Federal technology policy issues in Congress, said today that he is committed to encouraging further adoption of cloud services by the Federal government “through continued FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) oversight hearings” by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. […]

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) $9 billion multi-vendor cloud contract made more than $200 million in task order awards, and more are on the way, a top DoD technology official said on August 16. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has led a handful of identity security initiatives over the past year, and, according to a CISA official, is closing in on finalized guidance on recommended cybersecurity configuration baselines for select cloud products – like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. […]

The Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) will assess the recent Microsoft Exchange Online intrusion and conduct a broader review of issues relating to cloud-based identity and authentication infrastructure, the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced today. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is pushing agencies to implement security measures to protect their cloud computing services against cyberattacks, following the July hack of Federal agency cloud-based email accounts by China-based threat actors. […]

The U.S. Army is currently looking to integrate its tactical networks with its enterprise cloud systems, something that a top Army official this week said is “really challenging” to do. […]

The Defense Department’s (DoD) efforts to move from a highly networked legacy environment to a data-driven environment require a careful balance between modernizing network systems and meeting mission requirements, a senior Pentagon technology official explained this week. […]