Agencies now have 30 days to sprint to new cybersecurity standards after multiple data breaches at the Office of Personnel Management. But some chief information security officers say they are more concerned about what impact a cyber attack will have on their organization\'s reputation than the data itself that\'s at risk. That\'s according to a new report from the RAND Corporation, \"The Defender\'s Dilemma: Charting a Course Toward Cybersecurity.\" Martin Libicki, a senior management scientist and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, is a co-author of the report. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose what he heard from 18 CISOs about their cybersecurity operations.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) joins in the questioning of how OPM made the decision to award a contract to Winvale for credit monitoring services. The senator and AFGE are hearing from current and former federal employees complaining about the services provided under the $20.7 million deal.
The Office of Personnel Management offers new clues about the current and former federal employees affected by one data breach, while staying mum on the scope of another breach, thought to be much larger.
The Office of Management and Budget wants to create a cyber playbook, and a digital services teams focused on IT security. Tony Scott, the federal CIO, said industry also must play a bigger role by automatically enabling two-factor authentication and using more secure chips.
As saying goes, ever dark cloud has a silver lining. That\'s true for the recent OPM cyber breach. You just have to look very, very, very hard to find it, says Senior Correspondent Mike Causey.
Federal News Radio asked readers how they rated the performance of the Office of Personnel Management in communicating information about the recent data breaches. An overwhelming number rated the information as \"poor\" and many still didn\'t understand what happened or what they should do next.
The letters sent to those affected by the Office of Personnel Management cyber breach contain a certain sentence that attempts to indemnify the government from any liability surrounding the breach. But that sentence alone may not protect the government from someone who wants to sue it for damages. Federal employment attorney Heidi Burakiewicz, a partner at the law firm Mehri and Skalet, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with an insider\'s look at how the 1974 Privacy Act could cover recent cyber attacks and let lawsuits fly.
While the number of people in Congress calling for the OPM director to resign grows, the White House is voicing support for Katherine Archuleta. NTEU and NARFE have sent letters to OPM asking for more details on the second breach.
The second term is when a President has traditionally concentrated on establishing his legacy. According to Senior Correspondent Mike Causey, it\'s also the time when things tend to get tougher -- and less friendly -- for the White House resident.
The IRS would face even greater financial constraints and federal building construction would grind nearly to a halt under a $20.2 billion FY 2016 spending bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee.
Commentary: Federal Drive host Tom Temin says he sees no other choice than for OPM Director Katherine Archuleta to resign over the agency\'s massive data breaches.
Lawmakers and good-government groups say the Competitive Service Act of 2015 would reduce duplication among agencies by creating a \"best qualified list\" for similar job openings.
Office of Personnel Management officials told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lawmakers that they didn\'t encrypt employee Social Security numbers because its systems couldn\'t handle the new technologies. Lawmakers pointed to previous breaches of contractors as a highly-probable way hackers got into OPM\'s system this time around.
As the Office of Personnel Management begins notifying feds of a second cyber breach, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey warns that more bad news may be on the horizon.
The Office of Management and Budget tells agencies they have 30 days to secure their networks. It appears to be reacting to the second major cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management. That second breach puts military and intelligence security clearance holders at risk. You can read the details about the second breach at Federal News Radio dot com. Dave McClure is chief strategist at the Veris Group, and former associate administrator at the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration. He\'s writing about a few ground rules your agency should think about for better cybersecurity. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the \"cut and paste\" approach to collecting threat information and what that means for agencies.