Cybersecurity

  • Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) wants the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general to investigate the full-suite of systems OPM uses to store personal background investigation information.

    July 06, 2015
  • Steph Warren, VA’s chief information officer, is cautiously optimistic about the trajectory of cyber attacks against his agency. After hitting a peak of one billion attempted malware intrusions in the month of March, the figure fell to half that in May. As Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu reports, VA is crediting better perimeter defenses and tighter controls on employees’ access to suspicious websites.

    July 06, 2015
  • The Pentagon’s newest cyber organization is poised to take a key step in its maturation over the next several weeks as it branches out from Fort Meade and into three new branch offices designed to help defend DoD systems in various geographic areas.

    July 06, 2015
  • Statistics from the Department of Veterans Affairs show a significant decline in malware making its way into the department’s networks over the past two months. VA officials credit the government’s approach to “collective” cybersecurity.

    July 03, 2015
  • The Office of Personnel Management cyber breaches are pushing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to encourage agencies to move to the Einstein program. That program is billed as a way to uncover intrusions. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, is working on the bill along with the chairman of the Committee, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Carper tells In Depth with Francis Rose why he and Senator Johnson think the bill is necessary and what they want it to accomplish.

    July 02, 2015
  • The government's cybersecurity spend is destined to go toward figuring where the cyber holes are while cloud computing adoption continues at a modest pace. These are a few predictions from Deltek's Federal IT Industry Outlook. Deniece Peterson is the director of federal industry analysis for Deltek. On Industry Chatter, she tells In Depth with Francis Rose her prognosis for the Federal IT market.

    July 02, 2015
  • In the aftermath of the massive data breach suffered by the Office of Personnel Management, the Homeland Security Department issues a new alert about targeted phishing attacks against federal employees and retirees. Federal News Radio asked cyber experts for advice on what victims should be on the lookout for from these bogus emails.

    July 02, 2015
  • Get ready for a real crackdown on cybersecurity practices. Agencies have less than two weeks to make sure all their systems administrators and other employees, known as privileged users, can only log on using their smart identification cards. The Office of Management and Budget sets hard deadlines for agencies, and it seems like they're serious this time. Federal News Radio’s executive editor Jason Miller joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with exclusive details on this new requirement under the administration’s 30-day cyber sprint.

    July 02, 2015
  • The Office of Management and Budget gives agencies a summer deadline to implement smart ID cards for network and computer access. The White House wants system administrators and other privileged users to use two-factor authentication by mid-July and all employees by the end of August.

    July 02, 2015
  • The Office of Personnel Management says it's investigating the cyber breaches that allowed the loss of information of millions of federal employees. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose is former the Chief Information Officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He's now president of the Meyerrose Group. He tells In Depth at Francis Rose about what to expect next after OPM's cyber breaches.

    July 01, 2015
  • Rep. Gerry Connolly isn't so confident in OPM after the agency misspelled his name when determining if he was impacted by the cyber breach.

    July 01, 2015
  • The Office of Personnel Management's Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing system is offline now after the agency says it found a security vulnerability. The site will be offline for four to six weeks. OPM hasn't said the discovery came out of the 30-day cyber sprint called for by federal CIO Tony Scott. Karen Evans, executive director of the U.S. Cyber Challenge and former e-gov administrator at the Office of Management and Budget, is watching the agencies respond to Tony Scott's call. She tells In Depth with Francis Rose, how the OPM breach is changing the way agencies protect their data.

    June 30, 2015
  • Leaders of the largest federal employee union said they believe the lawsuit can compel the agency to act where numerous congressional hearings and calls for OPM Director Katherine Archuleta to resign have not.

    June 30, 2015
  • The Office of Personnel Management shut down the database that holds security clearance information after finding a cybersecurity flaw. The decision by OPM to take the e-QIP system offline means thousands of federal employees and contractors will have to wait for their security clearances. Federal News Radio’s Executive Editor Jason Miller joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to discuss this latest emerging OPM cybersecurity challenge.

    June 30, 2015