FCW Insider: Sept. 5

Federal CISO Grant Schneider said the Office of Management and Budget is looking at revamping the CyberStat program. Derek B. Johnson reports.

A new working group at ATARC looks to help agencies with familiar technical and management challenges of a move to a commercial cloud. Mark Rockwell has more.

Lauren C. Williams explains what the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center chief is looking for in an AI ethicist. 

Quick Hits

*** BT Federal, Granite, Harris, MetTel and Microtech all inched closer to obtaining authority to operate certification required to provide services under the $50 billion governmentwide Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract, according to a status report released Sept. 4 by the General Services Administration. AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink have all obtained ATOs and can bid on contracts to provide EIS services. CenturyLink won a contract with NASA in April, and AT&T recently landed a $1 billion contract with the Department of Justice. More solicitations are coming. At an industry event in August, Allen Hill, director of the Office of Telecommunications Services in GSA's Federal Acquisition Services, said GSA had reviewed and approved 54 "scope reviews" of agency EIS task orders that will hit the street in the coming months.

*** The Department of Homeland Security has tapped Beth Cappello for the deputy CIO role.  She fills the job vacated by Stephen Rice, who left in June to become deputy CIO for the Navy Federal Credit Union.  

Capello most recently served as deputy CIO and acting CIO with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

*** In the wake of revelations that Florida elections systems were targeted by Russian hackers in the 2016 elections, Reps. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) are backing legislation to require DHS to notify state and local officials when an election system breach is identified. The bill -- the Achieving Lasting Electoral Reforms on Transparency and Security or ALERTS Act -- was introduced in June.

In a Sept. 3 column in the Washington Post, Murphy complained of the secrecy surrounding the attempts to penetrate election systems, noting that "federal law enforcement agencies view local election officials whose networks were targeted as victims entitled to confidentiality." Murphy argued that the "victims are the voters, who deserve to know what happened and what their leaders are doing to prevent it from happening again."

A spokesperson for Murphy told FCW that the ALERTS Act will likely be marked up in committee when members return from August recess.

*** Don't miss FCW's Sept. 11 Digital Transformation Workshop. Presenters at this half-day event include the Defense Digital Service's Katie Olson, the National Archives and Records Administration's Lisa Haralampus, the General Services Administration's David Harrity, the U.S. Digital Service's Florence Kasule and more.