Category: IT Policy

April 13, 2022

The Department of Homeland Security will soon be able to work with the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium to ramp up its cybersecurity preparedness and incident response initiatives across the country after the Senate adopted the NCPC Act by unanimous consent. […]

April 11, 2022

European regulators are preparing sweeping legislation that could force open Apple’s walled garden, among other things. The Cupertino giant has long maintained that iOS is safer than Android because of an insistence on only allowing users to install apps from […]

March 22, 2022

Whether we wish to admit it, the way the internet is used is in the midst of a major morph due to the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is moving to cut off internet access to Ukraine and […]

March 14, 2022

Last week’s passage of an omnibus spending bill eliminated the threat of a full-year continuing resolution and gave the Defense budget a nearly 4.7% spending increase. But lawmakers were less generous when it came to the matter of expanding a […]

March 11, 2022

Regulators in Europe and the UK have opened an antitrust probe into a deal between Google and Meta on online advertising, in the latest effort to tackle the market power of the world’s biggest technology companies. The move follows US […]

February 1, 2022

The world’s largest technology companies are pouring money into the biggest foreign policy think tanks in the US, as they seek to advance the argument that stricter competition rules will benefit China. Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple are behind an […]

January 31, 2022

Lawmakers are eyeing reforms to federal cyber standards, but the White House is already starting to ask new questions about how agencies are making progress on cybersecurity. The changes are laid out in fiscal year 2022 metrics used by the […]

January 25, 2022

It’s a key part of President Joe Biden’s plans to fight major ransomware attacks and digital espionage campaigns: creating a board of experts that would investigate major incidents to see what went wrong and try to prevent the problems from […]

January 20, 2022

United States President Joe Biden issued a 17-page National Security Memorandum (NSM) yesterday containing new cybersecurity requirements for national security systems (NSS). The memo’s purpose is to ensure that these more sensitive systems employ the same or more stringent cybersecurity […]

January 12, 2022

The Washington State Senate heard testimony during a virtual hearing Wednesday for bills that would form a blockchain workgroup and require the state’s technology office to develop a plan for developing a digital credential network. The proposed bills, introduced Monday […]

December 13, 2021

North Carolina Chief Information Officer Jim Weaver announced Monday the hiring of Cherie Givens, an attorney and former federal contractor, as the state’s first chief privacy officer. In the role, Givens will be responsible for managing data-privacy risks and ensuring […]

December 3, 2021

The SolarWinds cyberattack was unprecedented in both scope and scale. The sophisticated breach saw hackers bake their exploit into a trusted software update pushed out to SolarWinds clients, including federal government agencies. This resulted in the exposure of sensitive data […]

November 8, 2021

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers and other groups representing state and local officials praised the U.S. House of Representatives voting late Friday night to approve a $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending bill that includes, among many measures, a […]

November 1, 2021

The first U.S. National Cyber Director wants the government to take a tougher, more proactive approach to those who threaten America’s networks: degrade their capabilities and demonstrate how they would suffer should they attack. John “Chris” Inglis’ vision for his […]

October 21, 2021

The Commerce Department writes that the export of cybersecurity items to countries of national security or weapons of mass destruction concern will require a license from the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). Countries subject to a US arms […]

October 21, 2021

Request were initially sent to Apple, Amazon, Facebook, PayPal, Google and Square, the bureau said, and are pursuant to Section 1022(c)(4) of the Consumer Financial Protection Act. Specifically, the bureau believes the information will provide insight into data harvesting and […]

October 15, 2021

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ plan to implement President Joe Biden’s executive order on software procurement will require more than the bare minimum from contractors. The executive order will require agencies to obtain a software bill of materials—typically […]

October 7, 2021

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced new cybersecurity regulations for US railroad and airport operators on Wednesday. First reported by Reuters, the rules mandate that operators disclose any hacks, create cyberattack recovery programs and name a chief cyber official. The […]

September 27, 2021

In 2020, cyberattacks against the U.S. government organizations cost $18.88 billion in recovery costs and downtime. In an effort to drive down this cost and improve our cybersecurity posture, this year the federal government has announced a number of initiatives, […]

September 24, 2021

China’s central bank reiterated its stance on cryptocurrency on Friday, releasing a memo that banned cryptocurrency transactions and made it illegal for overseas exchanges to provide services to people in China. “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities,” the […]