Trusted Internet Connections

In today’s Federal Newscast, citing the cost of defending himself against “false” allegations, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he will be stepping down.

Mark Bunn, DHS’ TIC program manager, described some of the changes agencies can expect to see in TIC 3.0.

In today’s Federal Newscast, the Department of Veterans Affairs was forced to change how it pays for veterans’ education benefits after IT problems.

The Office of Management and Budget and new White House Office of American Innovation are working together on a 90-day sprint to develop a series of work streams on a variety of topics. Teams will recommend new ideas on ways to improve shared services mechanisms, the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) policy and federal hiring process.

The Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) policy is making the move to the cloud more complex than some say it needs to be. It was one of three hot topics at the ACT-IAC Management of Change conference last week.

The Homeland Security Department and the FedRAMP program management office released a draft crosswalk between the cloud cybersecurity program and the Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) initiative. The goal is to make it easier for federal workers to access their network and apps securely through mobile devices.

The OMB E-Gov Cyber unit will prioritize those agencies that have struggled to implement two-factor authentication for CyberStat reviews. Only 41 percent of federal civilian agencies are using HSPD-12 cards to log on to networks and computers.

A new white paper from SafeGov recommended ways for agencies to move to an integrated cloud and cyber approach and away from one that is fragmented and ad hoc in many respects. Karen Evans, a co-author of the report and a former Office of Management and Budget administrator for e-government and IT, said agencies need a clearer picture of how this integration could happen.

White House senior director for cybersecurity Andy Ozment said budget folks are getting a better understanding of why cybersecurity is important thanks to the administration’s high- priority governmentwide goals. NIST also is helping push the cross-agency goals forward from a technical perspective.