Don't be too quick to dismiss FISMA
A grass-roots reform of federal IT security practices is under way that has nothing to do with legislation, says the director of NIST's FISMA implementation program.
The spooks have an acronym for it
The intelligence community’s Intellipedia is gaining acceptance with analysts and advisers, as a growing catalog of acronyms shows, although not to you.
NSF offers researchers high-performance computing time on advanced computing network
The coming round of one-year grants of computing time on the NSF’s advanced TeraGrid system give researchers access to more than two petaflops of computing power and 50 petabytes of online and archived data storage.
Supply chain security expands in unclassified community
A civilian working group is expanding a CNCI initiative on managing risk in the IT supply chain to the unclassified community. The group is also seeking real-world feedback for a set of proposed best practices for supply chain risk management.
Will digital certificates replace passwords?
Passwords have long been the standard for identity authentication. But there are limits to memory and scalability with every technique for generating and managing them, and eventually convenience and security clash. Is it time to move to digital certificates?
Access control: Feds search for scalable solution
There are many practical technologies for verifying identity online. But tailoring them to meet the varied and growing demands for identity management and access control remains a challenge.
Need to crack someone else's password?
Tool lets investigators harness the power of distributed computing to search for and crack passwords and crypto keys.
Training security personnel remains a challenge
Agencies are required under FISMA to provide training for IT security personnel, and the need to husband limited resources puts a high priority on matching appropriate levels of training with personnel. NIST offers some suggestions on meeting the challenge.
New space race is on for satellite positioning systems
The United States' monopoly on satellite positioning systems will soon end as other nations build their own constellations of navigation satellites.
Fixing the flaws in North American maps
Twentieth-century mapping techniques have not kept pace with 21st-century geospatial technology, and the National Geodetic Survey has begun a 10-year program to update the National Spatial Reference System that the nation’s mapping and surveying are built on.
Agencies' big security weakness: Lack of money and people
The problem with government IT security is not so much a lack of adequate regulations but a lack of resources to ensure that agencies practice good security, says former Interior CIO Hord Tipton.
Let’s kill the kill-switch debate
Hype and hysteria over the supposed “kill switch” in Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s proposed cybersecurity bill has a lot more to do with politics than with cybersecurity.
Security must come before the cloud, GAO says
Agencies have begun addressing security issues of cloud computing, but efforts to develop a comprehensive security framework so far are fragmented and incomplete, a GAO study found.
New IT security guidelines focus on real-time risk management
Guidance for assessing IT security controls required under FISMA has been revised by NIST to emphasize real-time risk management and to harmonize security requirements across government.
Obama to double commercial spectrum available for broadband development
Presidential memorandum calls for NTIA and FCC to identify 500 MHz of radio spectrum to be licensed for broadband connectivity over the next 10 years, and for development of technologies to make better use of this limited resource.
Best defense against hackers: Know your enemy
Absolute security is impossible, but NSA analyst Tony Sager says an understanding of your opponent’s craft can help you to put him out of the game – at least temporarily.
Another domain adopts added DNS security
The Public Interest Registry on Wednesday announced that it has become the first generic top-level domain in the Internet to go live with Domain Name System Security Extensions, joining other TLDs such as .gov in deploying the extra layer of security.
Better cybersecurity depends on better information management
National Security Agency official Tony Sager says that sharing security information is not enough; information must be better managed to ensure that the right information about threats and vulnerabilities gets into the hands of those who need it.
With social media, State embraces disruption
New technology is disruptive. But the State Department has decided that social networking can be used for agencies and against them, and its presence cannot be ignored, says the department's social media guru, Jared Cohen.
How to move to advanced cryptography
Two draft publications released by NIST for public comment provide guidance for transitioning to new crypto algorithms and for developing a system for managing cryptographic keys.
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
Manage Consent Preferences
Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.
Cookie List
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Functional Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Performance Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Social Media Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Targeting Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Help us tailor content specifically for you: