Technology

  • The winners of USDA\'s Apps for Healthy Kids challenge were announced today. Amanda Eamich, director of web communications at USDA, joined DorobekINSIDER to discuss the motivation behind the contest and give details about the winning apps.

    September 29, 2010
  • A new app tracks where the oil was -- and still is -- from the Gulf Coast oil spill. Jonathan Nelson, marketing director for Intridea, joined DorobekINSIDER to discuss the development of the Oil Reporter app.

    September 29, 2010
  • Federal Security Spotlight examines the stand-up of the new DoD Cyber Command, to be lead by General Keith Alexander. This week, we bring you a portion of a House Armed Services Committee hearing where Alexander testified. September 30, 2010

    September 29, 2010
  • The General Services Administration is drafting new rules for improving cybersecurity. Federal News Radio\'s Jason Miller joined DorobekINSIDER with details and reaction to the policy.

    September 29, 2010
  • Quick Response codes or QR codes are bar codes on steroids. They look like a 3-D crossword puzzle and can store a couple thousand characters of information within a tiny square. Clay Johnson, blogger at infovegan.com, joined DorobekINSIDER to discuss possible applications of QR codes for government.

    September 29, 2010
  • Adult web sites have long been thought of as the riskiest place to get a computer virus, but you\'re actually more likely to download malware on popular sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, CSO Magazine reports.

    September 29, 2010
  • Government Computer News reports that a new National Institute of Standards and Techology project integrates two protocols to enable automated policy enforcements on networks. The South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services is testing the combination in a pilot program.

    September 29, 2010
  • Some members of Congress say the over-classification of documents in the intelligence community is causing miscommunication and confusion -- leading to two bills introduced this week targeting over-classification.

    September 29, 2010
  • Prepare for the worst…and hope for the best. This unofficial mantra of the emergency preparedness and response community also applies to cyber preparedness. This week seven federal agencies, 11 states, 12 international partners, and 60 private sector companies are doing just that: preparing for the worst in cyberspace. These organizations are all participants in Cyber Storm III, a global cybersecurity preparedness exercise led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. By the end of the week, these organizations will have responded to a fictionalized cyber threat scenario designed to test their individual and collective capabilities to respond to cyber attacks and the National Cyber Incident Response Plan (Interim Version, September 2010). Federal cyber preparedness has never been more important. The threat to federal information assets and networks is diverse, persistent, and growing. In recent testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, General Keith Alexander, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, stated that U.S. Department of Defense networks are \"probed roughly 250,000 times an hour\" and characterized the \"…shift toward operationalizing cyber tools as weapons to damage or destroy\" as a \"great concern to us at Cyber Command.\" The National Cyber Incident Response Plan states: Preparedness activities, including establishing common situational awareness in a common operational picture, are shared responsibilities across Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial governments and the private sector. This week\'s Cyber Storm III exercise will provide new insight into our federal agencies\' cyber preparedness. As agencies identify lessons learned from the exercise and begin to make improvements to address areas of weakness, they should do so through a framework addressing the following elements: Governance: bringing together the mission, policies, architectures, and organizational alignment to establish the who and what for risk management strategies. Risk management: establishing risk tolerance thresholds and implementing the technologies and processes that will assess, prioritize, and monitor risk on a continual basis. Compliance: ensuring the organization maintains a cyber security posture compliant with federal laws, regulations, guidelines, and standards with the ability to demonstrate sound risk management strategies when scrutinized by internal and external auditors and Inspectors General. Operations: designing, implementing, and monitoring security controls at the operational and tactical levels to include the ability to adequately respond to, withstand, and remediate cyber attacks. General Alexander described the new approach needed for cyber deterrence by paraphrasing General Sun Tzu\'s The Art of War: \"we must understand the cyber environment and, the capabilities of our adversaries, and our own abilities.\" By evaluating federal cybersecurity programs through this framework, agencies can better understand their capabilities and live up to their shared responsibility for cyber preparedness.

    September 29, 2010
  • October 4th and October 6th Mr. Spires is responsible for the department\'s $6.4 billion investment in Information Technology (IT).

    September 29, 2010
  • September 27th and September 29th As a functional manager of the U.S. Air Force Medical Service, he exercises direction, guidance and technical management of more than 42,800 people assigned to 75 medical facilities worldwide.

    September 29, 2010
  • Microsoft has issued an out-of-band security update, blocking ongoing attacks against a flaw in the ASP.NET web application framework that can cause poor encryption implementations.

    September 29, 2010
  • Some Senate Armed Services Committee members are unhappy with the Pentagon\'s lack of transparency and inclusion in the decision to close the base. Defense Deputy Secretary Lynn said the Pentagon held almost 30 meetings before concluding that JFCOM needed to be closed. Lynn also offers insight into future of DoD CIO and BTA.

    September 29, 2010
  • Twitter and Facebook users beware: Spam is on the rise. Hackers and spammers are looking for security holes in the social networking sites, USA Today reports.

    September 28, 2010

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