The Department of Government Efficiency claimed tens of billions of dollars in savings on its infamous “Wall of Receipts,” but the Government Accountability Office found it touted savings that never happened and could not be substantiated.
The stance is more aggressive than that of many groups representing contractors, who told GSA to revise, rather than withdraw, the proposed large language model acquisition rule.
The remarks underscore a grim outlook for cyberdefenders showing that AI systems are able to exploit vulnerabilities faster than governments can patch them.
In a new report, the Government Accountability Office said it was unable to verify if all Department of Government Efficiency employees completed mandatory activities intended to avoid conflicts of interest.
AI may let hackers exploit newly disclosed software flaws so quickly that organizations should weigh whether to immediately patch internet-connected devices, even at the risk of causing outages, Rob Joyce said.
An industry lawyer anticipates more bid protests will likely allege that agencies misused AI in the procurement process but that could be hard to prove if agencies don’t report their use of AI as “high-impact.”
National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross’s remarks come as the White House has excluded open-weight models from voluntary security testing and as new hacking incidents underscored risks posed by autonomous AI.
OpenAI’s latest GPT-5.6 models were made available for government work via the FedRAMP-authorized ChatGPT Enterprise offering, weeks after one of the advanced models was involved in executing an autonomous digital attack.
China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom retained equipment, data center space and network ties after FCC restrictions, including a China Mobile-linked network that appeared in routes to Salt Typhoon servers.
Efforts to speed up adoption of new capabilities have “disrupted the longstanding practice of how technology is driven into this government,” GSA CIO Dave Shive told Nextgov/FCW.
The group called on CISA to impose baseline security standards across federal operational technology systems and pressed Congress to revive several stalled cyber initiatives.
Bills introduced this week feature bipartisan efforts to bolster emerging technologies, specifically quantum information sciences and AI’s impact on nuclear security, plus more chatbot regulations.
A memo distributed to water industry members and obtained by Nextgov/FCW makes mention of Iran but does not directly present evidence attributing the latest Minnesota incident to the country.