National & World Headlines

  • Reuters is reporting, "Iranian hackers have repeatedly attacked Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc over the past year, as part of a broad cyber campaign targeting the United States." The attacks, started in late 2011 and escalated this year. The attacks disrupted the banks' websites and corporate networks by launching denial of service attacks. Iran's nuclear program has been attacked repeated by viruses that U.S. is believed to have authored.

    September 24, 2012
  • Federal prosecutors said the company submitted misleading test certificates concerning the design and construction of a 911 emergency response system in Iraq.

    September 24, 2012
  • The money will pay for a pedestrian tunnel from the National Institutes of Health metro station to Walter Reed. The two federal facilities face each other across a busy Bethesda road.

    September 24, 2012
  • Secretary Leon Panetta announced the change as he concluded a tour of Asian and Pacific countries. But New Zealand's Defense Minister said U.S. ships still may not enter its waters.

    September 24, 2012
  • For the first time, review panels will question not just new IT projects, but also money spent on maintaining older technologies. The changes are part of an overhaul Congress ordered the Pentagon to implement with regard to how it handles investment review boards, the internal overseers that federal agencies use to greenlight spending for business IT systems.

    September 24, 2012
  • High level three-way talks between the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan could be coming. The goal is to fix counterterrorism problems. Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's Foreign Minister told several media yesterday senior officials from the three countries have been instructed to come up with a strategy for repairing cooperation that has suffered since U.S.-Pakistani relations collapsed a year and half ago.

    September 21, 2012
  • Robert Hale, the military's CFO, said reductions in force would cost more money than the Defense Department would save. But hiring a freeze and involuntary unpaid furloughs would be likely for civilians.

    September 21, 2012
  • Prof. Charles O'Brien of the University of Pennsylvania talks about a report on binge drinking in the military. Jacob Pankowski of Greenberg Traurig and David Childs of Management Analysis Incorporated offer insight on inherently governmental procedures.

    September 20, 2012
  • Officials say one in six service members and vets suffer from PTSD. The research will focus on spotting symptoms, prevention and treatment.

    September 20, 2012
  • Should-cost management and affordability-cap elements of acquisition overhaul have worked well, DoD's acquisition chief says. But workforce has overreacted to Pentagon's urging toward more fixed-price contracts.

    September 20, 2012
  • In part 4 of Federal News Radio's special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years, we examine progress the administration has made in the acquisition arena. We rated one initiative as effective (green), three as ineffective (red) and two as more progress needed (yellow). View the details of each initiative through our interactive dashboard.

    September 20, 2012
  • Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, discusses which elements of the Better Buying Power Initiative have been successful. Plus, Henry Sienkiewicz, vice chief information assurance executive at the Defense Information Systems Agency and Roger Greenwell, DISA's director for field security operations join us to talk about the agency's plan to build on its track record of information assurance training and develop modular, DoD-wide training for specific cyber roles across the military services.

    September 19, 2012
  • Reuters is reporting, "privately-owned U.S. computer networks remain vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and many U.S. companies are not doing enough to protect them, Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Wednesday. "I hope this isn't one of those situations where we won't do what we need to do until we get slammed," Carter told the annual Air Force Association conference. Attacks on American computer infrastructure by other countries and criminal gangs have soared in recent years, according to U.S. government officials. Efforts to pass legislation to strengthen U.S. cyber security have met obstacles such as privacy issues."

    September 19, 2012
  • Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is advising China to expand military relations with the United States to shrink the risk of a conflict. This as the two powers wrestle with a volatile territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo. Panetta, on his first trip to China as defense secretary, recognized differences between the two countries over maritime security in East Asia, but says better ties would help.

    September 19, 2012