'Back-Door' Base Closures
Biden Talks Loss With Fallen Troops' Families
Neely Out at GSA
More USPS Buyouts
Gimme My Discount! Deals for Feds
Buyout Watch: Who's Offering What
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Aliya Sternstein
Senior Correspondent
Aliya Sternstein reports on cybersecurity and homeland security systems for Nextgov. She has covered technology for nine years at such publications as National Journal's TechnologyDaily, Federal Computer Week and Forbes. Before joining Government Executive, she covered agriculture and derivatives trading for Congressional Quarterly. She has been a guest commentator on C-SPAN, WTOP and Federal News Radio. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Security presented as the foundation of new federal digital strategy
12:57 PM ET
FROM NEXTGOV
A new guidebook for mobile-enabled government aims to squelch privacy and security concerns common to tiny devices by protecting sensitive data before it ever reaches a phone. The 31-page White House strategy issued Wednesday for delivering agency services via apps attaches the word “secure” to almost every activity description. A ...
No More Dot-Mil Accounts on Dating Sites
12:48 PM ET
FROM NEXTGOV
The Pentagon this month plans to distribute a new policy on personal social media use that tells troops to hide certain identifying information when interacting online, Defense Department officials tell Nextgov. Increasingly, hackers are gleaning sensitive work details from social networks by drawing inferences from posts, such as military unit ...
Clouds don’t need real-time threat reporting tools to win federal stamp of approval
May 24, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
Cloud companies planning to apply in June for certification to sell Web services governmentwide will not be obligated to provide automated threat reports, the government’s purchasing agency told Nextgov. Until now, the Obama administration had expected agencies to outfit all information technology with “continuous monitoring” tools that feed risk indicators, ...
Al Qaeda video calls for electronic jihad on government computers
May 23, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
A video purportedly from al Qaeda that promotes cyberattacks on the U.S. electric grid is being circulated by Senate backers of legislation to regulate the computer security of critical industries, including power companies. The video includes a U.S. television clip featuring cyber analyst James Lewis and former National Intelligence Director ...
Researcher: Alleged breach of dating site shows flaws in military’s social media policies
May 23, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
This story has been updated with comment from the Defense Department. The apparent hack of a military online dating website suggests the need for U.S. defense personnel to disguise their identities on social networks, says a computer researcher who studied the alleged penetration. An affiliate of the LulzSec hacker activist ...
First online immigration application now available
May 22, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
A struggling, billion-dollar project to digitize immigration paperwork took a significant step forward on Tuesday by going live with its first online form. Certain visa-holders seeking to extend or change the status of their stays now can create Amazon-like accounts to securely file the application, Form I-539. The U.S. Citizenship ...
Phone hacking problems? Defense, intel agencies have an app for that
May 21, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
Several military and intelligence agencies are downloading an anti-hacking app to thwart call interceptions on smartphones, according to providers of the tool. The software application, Cellcrypt Mobile, runs on commercial mobile devices, including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia models. Unlike the hacks associated with Rupert Murdoch's news empire, the concern ...
Tricky to win U.S.-China cyber blame game
May 21, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military prowess, unshockingly, raised concerns about the country’s cyber raids that are similar to those aired last year. Over the weekend, the Chinese government, in typical fashion, immediately disputed the allegations through state news media. What’s different is that this year’s report ...
Customs and border agency tries new twist on industry days
May 18, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
Customs and Border Protection has scheduled an all-day, atypical workshop Tuesday with prospective vendors to steer commercial funding toward technologies that could meet its future needs, CBP officials said. The Obama administration has proposed cutting border tech financing by $73 million in fiscal 2013. During the past couple of years, ...
Tough times make shared services a necessity
May 17, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
Financial conditions have made it essential for federal agencies to downsize information technology equipment and support by sharing those resources internally, White House officials said Thursday. Some agencies, however, have inadequate consolidation plans, they added. By March 1, agencies were supposed to inform the Office of Management and Budget of ...
