• The General Services Administration (GSA) is gearing up for post-election presidential transition efforts. And this time around, the process will look a little different. If a presidential candidate doesn’t concede for five days after the election, GSA’s transition services will be equally available to both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, until there is a concession for the election. The changes stem from a 2022 law that discontinued GSA’s process of “ascertainment,” after GSA delayed support during the 2020 presidential transition.
  (Changes to GSA's role in the presidential transition - General Services Administration)
• Federal HR employees have an opportunity to sign up for some upcoming training sessions. Starting in December, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will be hosting several training sessions to HR staff who work on human capital evaluations. The trainings come at no cost to employees, and there will be options for both virtual and in-person participation. OPM will hold sessions about once per month until September 2025. Feds interested in signing up have to fill out an online form and send it over to OPM.
  (Human capital framework evaluator trainin - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Defense Department (DoD) has awarded a $6.5 million contract to develop an Open Radio Access Network prototype at Fort Bliss, Texas. The prototype at Fort Bliss will establish a temporary 5G network to test and evaluate Open RAN technology. The prototype will test the ability to quickly switch spectrum at the 5G control node. The network will eventually transition to Hughes Network Systems’ commercial network for both military and civilian population. The Army, the DoD Chief Information Officer and the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering oversee the project.
  (DoD to develop 5G Open RAN prototype at Fort Bliss - Department of Defense)
• Fraudsters used an IRS tax pro hotline as part of a scheme to file hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus tax returns. Between August last year and April this year they filed more than 4,800 fraudulent tax returns seeking more than $460 million dollars. The IRS stopped payment on the vast majority of these fraudulent returns. But it still paid out more than $47 million dollars for hundreds of bogus returns. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says criminals used a phone line reserved for tax professionals as part of their scheme. Tax professionals often use the phone line to get tax return transcripts for their clients.
  (Actions were not taken to timely strengthen practitioner priority service telephone line authentication controls - Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)

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• Schuyler Moore, U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) first-ever chief technology officer, is stepping down from her role to join the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa as an intelligence officer. Prior to her role as the first CENTCOM’s CTO, Moore served as the chief strategy officer at Task Force 59 at the Naval Forces Central Command. Since Moore joined CENTCOM, the command published its data strategy and implementation plan, launched the tech residency program and conducted a number of hackathons, digital exercises and innovation competitions. . CENTCOM will soon announce the next CTO.
  (Centcom’s CTO Schuyler Moore joins Navy - Linkedin)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is focusing on risks ranging from hurricanes to cyber attacks. CISA has been in the news for its election security work. But the cyber agency this month is highlighting risks to all critical infrastructure. CISA’s security and resilience theme month comes as the agency continues to analyze so-called “systemically important entities.” Agencies that oversee critical infrastructure sectors like water and power are also working on new sector risk management plans. Those plans will help drive federal efforts to prepare the country for cyber threats and other risks.
  (CISA deepens coordination with agencies on ‘systemic’ risks - Federal News Network )
• Federal agencies added tens of thousands of tech workers over the past four years and are still recruiting. The Office of Personnel Management and more than 20 other federal agencies made their pitch to prospective hires at a “Tech to Gov” virtual job fair last week. Over the last year these virtual job fairs have helped 3,000 technologists find work at more than 64 federal, state and local government agencies. Acting OPM Director Rob Shriver says federal employees working in IT have a unique opportunity to take on projects that impact millions of Americans.
  (Federal agencies hired 30K technologists over last 4 years and recruiting even more - Federal News Network)
• Members of Congress continue to probe the recent hacking of U.S. telecom networks, allegedly by China-linked group named “Salt Typhoon.” Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley in a new letter to the Department of Homeland Security is asking for more information on DHS’s response to the cyber attacks. Grassley wants to know whether DHS has notified all victims of the hack and whether the department is taking steps to secure government data. The Salt Typhoon group is reported to have targeted U.S. political figures as well as a system used for court-ordered wiretapping.
  (Grassley letter to DHS re: Salt Typhoon - Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office)

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