Congress

• Teleworking and the Bizarro-fed

  Two bills in Congress would \"require that all federal workers be considered eligible for telework unless the agency shows they are ineligible.\"

  Congress

  March 29, 2010
• Agencies count on federal financial managers

  In the federal government, they wield spreadsheets, strive for \"clean audit opinions\", and are the first line of defense in accounting for the spending of taxpayer dollars. \"They\" are the top federal CFOs and financial managers, and yesterday, they met here in Washington to discuss their profession.

  Budget

  March 24, 2010
• Federal Cyber Security Education and Training

  Cyber attacks are a growing vulnerability for our homeland security and broader national interests - and federal employees are on the front lines. In fact, Politico recently reported that Congress and other government agencies face an average of 1.8 billion cyber attacks per month. Both the number of attacks and their sophistication continue to increase at an alarming rate. In many instances, the key to successfully combating an attack is stopping it at its entry point, which is often the unsuspecting federal employee. For example, the Politico report pointed out that \"…attacks are increasingly focused on infiltrating application software on Hill staffer computers…,\"noting: In the last five months of 2009, 87 Senate offices, 13 Senate committees and seven other offices were attacked by spear-phishing attacks, which appeared as e-mail messages to staffers urging them to open infected attachments or click on bad links. It is critical that federal employees understand the possible types of cyber attacks in order to guard against them. Creating an awareness of cyber threats is only the beginning. Addressing a persistent and evolving threat requires persistent and evolving training. A number of key elements are required for any near-term or long-term cyber security training effort to succeed. Cyber security must be an agency priority. Cyber security education and training are much like any other agency initiative: if leadership indicates that something is a priority, agency employees will take action. Agency leadership must make it clear that cyber security education and training are a priority, model the behavior they ask of their employees, and dedicate resources to address the problem and its solution. If they do so, federal employees will respond accordingly. Education and training must be continuous. Hackers, terrorists, and other bad cyber actors do not wait for reporting requirements or other compelling organizational issues to decide when to attack - they just do. Education and training efforts should be ongoing, consistently updated, and test employees\' understanding of the topic on a regular basis. Agencies must be as persistent and agile in their training as cyber attackers are in their efforts to do harm. All agency employees must be included in training. All agency employees, and their contractors, are vulnerable to cyber attacks. No grade level is too high or too entry-level to be excluded from standard education and training. Reporting and accountability measures must be implemented. Accountability mechanisms should be used to not only identify those personnel who have or have not received cyber security training, but also on how well they retain the information they have learned. The use of cyber security quizzes or other mechanisms to test the workforce\'s cyber knowledge provide a quantitative measure of the effectiveness of the training program as well as targeting specific personnel or subjects for deeper training. The techniques used to attack information networks and exploit information are quickly evolving to the point where it is almost impossible to distinguish intrusion activity. The federal government must use an educated workforce on the cyber threat as a force multiplier as part of its cyber security strategy. Individual employees and agencies must share the responsibility for anticipating and preventing cyber attacks from succeeding.

  Congress

  March 19, 2010
• DHS Bottoms Up Review stymies lawmakers

  With a headcount of contractors who work for one of the largest federal agencies in hand yesterday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ID-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, began a review of the DHS fiscal year 2011 proposed budget.

  Federal Drive

  February 26, 2010
• Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessment

  Dennis Blair, Director of the Office of National Intelligence, delivered the Intelligence Community\'s annual threat assessment to Congress last week. Cyber threats topped the list with the Director describing malicious cyber activity as occurring on an \"unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication\" and citing network convergence and channel consolidation as increasing vulnerabilities.

  Congress

  February 17, 2010
• DorobekINSIDER: Welcome to the new GSA administrator, Martha N. Johnson

  We’ve been following the saga forever, but the vote finally happened Thursday afternoon — we had it live as it happened on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris…

  Budget

  February 05, 2010
• DorobekINSIDER: GSA will have to wait until at least Thursday for any Johnson action

  It was thought that Tuesday might be GSA V-Day — as in Vote Day where the Senate would move along Martha Johnson’s long delayed nomination to be the administrator of the General Services Administration. But…

  Congress

  February 03, 2010
• DorobekInsider: Sen. elect Brown: Feds making 2X the private sector

  Federal employees making twice as much as their private sector counterparts, right? That’s what Senator-elect Scott Brown said during his interview Sunday with Barbara Walters on ABC News’ This Week: Photo: ABC News WALTERS: President…

  Budget

  February 01, 2010
• DorobekInsider: Johnson’s GSA nomination moves one step closer with cloture

  The DorobekInsider told you it was likely to happen — and in fact it has: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tonight filed a cloture motion for Martha Johnson’s long pending nomination, Federal News Radio’s…

  Budget

  January 28, 2010
• DorobekInsider: Did the President all-but mention GSA administrator nominee Johnson at the State of the Union?

  Most of probably watched the State of the Union address last night — President Obama’s first State of the Union address. Over all, there wasn’t much for feds specifically — he called for the end…

  Budget

  January 28, 2010
• DorobekInsider: State of the Union history

  President Obama gives his first State of the Union address tonight just days after his first year in office and days befire the administration issues its first full budget. And this White House is doing…

  Budget

  January 27, 2010
• GAO sees more bid protests in 2009

  The agency received more complaints last year than in any of the previous eight years. GAO also came to a final decision on more cases in 2009 than the year before. More agencies and vendors also are turning to alternative dispute resolution to solve their differences, GAO finds.

  Congress

  January 26, 2010
• DorobekInsider: New GSA deputy administrator is finally official — Susan Brita to start Feb. 2

  It has been one of the worst kept secrets in town but it is now official in the halls of GSA — Susan Brita, who most recently served as the Staff Director for the House…

  Budget

  January 22, 2010
• Former TSA nominee Erroll Southers goes from The Hill to home

  We talk with Southers about the nomination process, where he believes his nomination went wrong, and his view of what the next nominee might face.

  All News

  January 21, 2010