MayaSmith

US appoints First Exec Federal Cybersecurity Head

Declining Spending Begins to Bounce Back with Rising Budgets Over the past six years, we’ve seen a decline in government spending. But recently, there was been an increase in contract spending that is predicted to continue into fiscal year 2017. According to a study by Bloomberg Government, 60 percent of government spending is consistently on services; knowledge-based services, facility-related services, and technology services. The largest product spending is on technology equipment, with aircraft spending in second.

NSA Use of Software Flaws for Hacking Posed Risk to Cybersecurity Recently, the Nation Security Agency’s (NSA) hacking tools were leaked to the public, exposing many vulnerabilities across the internet and putting companies at risk of data breaches. Many say that the NSA should have disclosed each vulnerability as soon as they discovered it so that they could be fixed. Software vendors like Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet are actively working with their customers to ensure that any flaws in their systems are fixed immediately.

DNC Creates Cybersecurity Advisory Board Following Hack Following the WikiLeak email dump right before the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Democratic National Committee is creating a cybersecurity advisory board consisting of four industry experts. The board will be responsible for preventing future attacks on the DNC and making sure its cybersecurity capabilities are up-to-par. The committee will also ensure that those whose data was stolen will be protected so that further information from their accounts does not get leaked.

The Most Critical Skills Gap: Cybersecurity Since Target’s hack back in 2013, cybersecurity has been top of mind for organizations, especially those with sensitive information. However, the talent pool of those who are skilled in intrusion detection, secure software development and attack mitigation is not growing at the same rate as the demand. Many reasons contribute to this disconnect, including a lack of training in higher education and a 53% increase in need.

Technology Is Monitoring the Urban Landscape

Posing as Ransomware, Windows Malware Just Deletes Victims’ Files

Can Cybersecurity Insurance Improve Threat Management? Following the Brussels, Belgium terrorist attacks back in March, the U.S. House Homeland Security Cybersecurity Subcommittee met to discuss cyberinsurance and how to better promote cybersecurity best practices in general. Many are still questioning whether cyberinsurance will help solve the problem of threat, but the Department of Homeland Security believes it can, by acting as an incentive for better security practices within agencies.

This All-Star Team Plans to Jumpstart 100 Cybersecurity Companies in 3 Years

Why Small Bites Make Sense for Cloud Karen Petraska, service executive for computing services at NASA, spoke at last week’s AWS Public Sector Summit about taking small bites before fully committing to the cloud. Trial contracts, for one, are an easy way to slowly introduce the cloud into your environment while still leaving room to expand and adjust accordingly. Petraska also discussed NASA’s use of “non-specific ordering,” which allows NASA employees to use a refillable card when buying cloud services.

3-D Government: How Will Augmented Reality (AR) Disrupt the Future of Technology? Augmented reality and virtual reality are coming back into the news with a pair of glasses made by OTOY, similar to Google Glass. Unlike Google Glass however, media outlets are saying that these glasses may change many aspects of our daily life, including how we interact with our local governments. It allows for more opportunities to collaborate, train and simulate in both the public and private sector.

Update: 117 million LinkedIn email credentials found for sale on the dark web

Experts Split on the Federal Cyber Sprint Recently, a survey conducted by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium and KPMG was released at the (ISC)2 Conference and revealed opinions on the federal cyber sprint. Out of 54 executive-level government officials, 52 percent agreed that the cyber sprint had not enhanced overall security for federal information systems. With many new mandates and requirements being put on the plates of government agencies, they felt overwhelmed by yet another project to focus on.