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By Stuart McIrvine May 25, 2021 Whatever normal looked like in March 2020, it sure doesn’t look like that now. Just about everything in our lives has changed, from how we educate our kids to how we work, travel, bank and buy groceries. It has pushed IT departments to create widespread changes in an incredibly short time, and nowhere is this pressure being felt more than in government IT shops. Yet, even as local, state and federal agencies have heroically changed course to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of Americans who need services, how those agencies maintain data security must also be reimagined. With so much digital transformation taking place, hackers see plenty of opportunity to find and exploit weaknesses and they are bold; the recent breach of cybersecurity monolith SolarWinds shows that they are willing to take on major targets. ....
Don Troshynski CTO, 128 Technology, Juniper Networks Note: FCW Editor-in-Chief Troy K. Schneider led the roundtable discussion. The April 13 gathering was underwritten by Juniper Networks 128 Technology, but both the substance of the discussion and the recap on these pages are strictly editorial products. Neither the sponsor nor any of the roundtable participants had input beyond their April 13 comments. A group of federal IT leaders recently gathered to explore approaches to IT infrastructure challenges. The discussion was on the record but not for individual attribution (see sidebar for the full list of participants), and the quotes have been edited for length and clarity. Here s what the group had to say. ....
By Chris Riotta May 23, 2021 Tucked inside President Joe Biden s cybersecurity executive order is a plan to modernize and streamline federal procurement policy, which experts said lacked critical funding and resources to adequately implement within its ambitious timeframe. The order in part seeks to overhaul a current patchwork of regulations and guidelines for the private sector and commercial marketplace around federal contractor cybersecurity requirements. This plan will require agencies and contractors to address numerous issues at once under short timeframes, from developing standards for software supply chain security to removing barriers to sharing threat information. While private sector leaders expressed enthusiasm for improving cybersecurity requirements governmentwide as outlined in the order, they said the new policies may also yield duplicative, burdensome requirements and potential pitfalls in areas like information-sharing. ....
By Stephanie Kanowitz May 21, 2021 A two-week use-of-force simulation experiment (SIMEX) used virtual reality (VR) to study factors that might affect arrest-related fatalities. Conducted early last month by the Department of Homeland Security at the MITRE National Security Experimentation Lab in McLean, Va., the SIMEX simulated law enforcement officer and civilian encounters in an outdoor setting. More than 30 people participated, including officers from across the country, mental health experts and members of civilian review boards. The Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute and George Mason University also provided support. “Given last summer’s arrest-related fatalities, our office the Office of State and Local Law Enforcement wanted to look at this problem not from what we thought, but what was evidence-based, rooted in science,” OSLLE Associate Director Lori Sims said. ....
By Brent Hansen May 24, 2021 Despite recent unverified claims that DarkSide, the ransomware hacking operation responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack, has dismantled its operations, the incident reinforces one important point for government IT managers: If data is not encrypted, bad actors will do it themselves, and agencies will end up paying for it. While Colonial Pipeline is a private company, the attack clearly affected the government as well a particularly painful learning experience that demonstrates why IT must be considered part of the aging national infrastructure. Bad actors are not going away, and security breaches will continue to expose critical data to ransom demands. A strategy for surviving attacks is essential, and that strategy must focus on protecting data in motion and at rest. ....