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Here’s today’s list of news updates and stories you may have missed.
After pro-Trump violent protests broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Congress reconvened at night and certified that Joe Biden is the winner of the presidential election. Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff for communications and social media director, released the following statement on behalf of President Trump:
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
Wide-reaching hack has defense firms on their toes Some defense contractors, like hundreds of other companies, used the software breached by hackers. (WhataWin/Getty Images) WASHINGTON ― Some of the country’s leading defense firms are likely among the 18,000 SolarWinds customers that may have been swept up in one of the country’s worst cyber espionage failures, but investigations to determine the scope of the hackers’ reach will take significant time. Experts say there simply are not enough skilled threat-hunting teams to identify all the government and private-sector systems that may have been probed. FireEye, the cybersecurity company that discovered the intrusion into U.S. agencies and was among the victims, has already tallied dozens of casualties. It’s racing to identify more but already, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, and Booz Allen Hamilton have acknowledged they use SolarWinds products.
By Ross Wilkers
Dec 22, 2020
In the very late hours of Monday night, Congress passed a pair of spending packages worth $2.3 trillion combined to fund the government and keep the stimulus going in support of an economy roiled by the coronavirus pandemic.
Tucked into the $1.4 trillion appropriations bill to fund agencies for fiscal year 2021 (the current one) is another extension of a government contracting mechanism and authority that industry sees as important to keeping its financial well-being and labor force intact.
Section 3610 of the CARES Act now runs to March 31, 2021 to continue letting federal agencies modify contracts to reimburse companies the labor costs for workers essentially locked out of federal facilities during the pandemic.
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//]]>// >By John K. Higgins
Oct 22, 2020 5:00 AM PT
The U.S. government s policy to restrict federal agency exposure to products and services associated with Huawei Technologies and other China-based companies has gained the support of the U.S. information technology industry.
However, a wide swath of U.S. companies, including those in the IT sector, registered significant concerns about federal regulations designed to control the employment of China-sourced products by federal agencies and government contractors.
Government restrictions that prohibited the federal purchase of certain products from China were put into effect in 2019. Then, in August 2020 a whole set of new regulations went into effect to control or restrict the use of certain China-sourced technologies by federal contractors. The restrictions were adopted on an interim basis, and contractors were allowed to submit comments through mid-September. All comments will be considered in promulgating final regul