FCW Insider: Oct. 13

Tech groups slam Trump's diversity training executive order

The pushback comes as the Labor Department tries to explain what the memo does and does not allow with regard to diversity training.

Watchdog: FAA needs to do more to address aircraft cybersecurity

The Federal Aviation Administration has work to do to reinforce cybersecurity for increasingly networked commercial aircraft avionics systems, according to an oversight report.

FEHRM releases interoperability strategy

The strategy from the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization program office offers a set of goals that are more about health outcomes and empowering patients that specific technological benchmarks.

ATF looks to consolidate data to aid investigations

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sees an opportunity to tap data analytics to address rising gun store robberies.

DISA touts SETI for small business contracts

The Systems Engineering, Technology and Innovation contract vehicle is part of DISA's effort to consolidate its IT services and has a $7.5 billion ceiling with separate tracks for large and small businesses.

Quick Hits

*** The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are seeking a probe into the cybersecurity incident response capabilities of the Department of Health and Human Services. " The Chief Information Security Officer at HHS recently acknowledged that the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis has placed a new target on HHS, and malicious actors have boosted their efforts to infiltrate the agency and access sensitive data," lawmakers wrote in a bipartisan Oct. 9 letter to the Government Accountability Office.

*** U.S. Attorney General William Barr joined in an international declaration seeking joint government-industry proposals to give law enforcement oversight of encrypted communications. Barr was joined by top law enforcement officials from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada – the Five Eyes nations that are joined by a cooperation treaty in signals intelligence. Japan and India joined in the statement.

"We urge industry to address our serious concerns where encryption is applied in a way that wholly precludes any legal access to content," the statement read. The officials are concerned that end-to-end encryption poses, "significant challenges to public safety, including to highly vulnerable members of our societies like sexually exploited children."