IRS Hearing Gets Heated
Rocks, Guns and the Border Patrol
Budget Winners and Losers
Have Feds Gotten 25% of the Year Off?
The 'Pitiful' 1 Percent Pay Raise
Obama’s $26B ‘Wish List’ for the Pentagon
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.
Big Data Is a Good Place for Hackers to Hide
November 7, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
As departments increasingly try parsing mammoth streams of Web activity to detect cyber threats, expect attackers to fight back by gaming the big data analytics, according to a new cybersecurity report by Georgia Tech researchers. Even U.S. spies could be fooled. "Government agencies, such as the National Security Agency, collect ...
CIA-backed Cloud Security Firm Buys Encryption Company to Help Spy-Wary Industry
November 7, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
At least one U.S. cloud company sees an opportunity to benefit from the backlash against brethren accused of facilitating domestic surveillance. Cloud services -- think Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure -- essentially rent out data storage space in big computer rooms clients can access through the Internet or a ...
FBI Puts a $100,000 Bounty on Most-Wanted Cyber Criminal
November 6, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
As part of a crackdown on fugitive hackers, the FBI has added more digital racketeers to the decades-old Most Wanted program and upped the ante for their arrest. The cybercriminal category, consequently, now has its own Top 10 list, FBI officials announced this week. The gangsters of Cyber's Most Wanted ...
Government Agencies Have No Way of Warning Each Other About a Cyber Attack, IG Says
November 5, 2013 The departments of Homeland Security and Defense, including the National Security Agency, have no way of sharing current alerts about computer breaches with each other or industry, an inspector general memorandum reveals. The problem is not an inability to document incidents, but, rather, an inability to alert potential victims as ...
IG: Government Has No Digital Cyber Warning System
November 5, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The departments of Homeland Security and Defense, including the National Security Agency, have no way of sharing current alerts about computer breaches with each other or industry, an inspector general memorandum reveals. The problem is not an inability to document incidents, but, rather, an inability to alert potential victims as ...
FBI Seeks Video Recognition Technology to Automatically ID Suspects
November 4, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The FBI is weighing the use of video recognition technology to quickly identify suspects, even if all the camera has captured is a perpetrator’s limp or fraying blue baseball cap. Think of it as automated police lineups for the YouTube generation. While investigators manually scoured video to identify the suspected ...
HealthCare.gov Contractor Previously Jeopardized Personal Data of 6 Million Medicare Beneficiaries
October 31, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The contractor now responsible for stabilizing HealthCare.gov, under a separate, ongoing contract, endangered the private information of millions of entitlement program beneficiaries, according to federal investigators. Quality Software Services, Inc., or QSSI, failed to stop employees from connecting unauthorized USB devices, such as thumb drives and smartphones, to computers testing ...
Researchers Find a Way to Hack Spanish Language HealthCare.gov
October 30, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Until fixed on Wednesday afternoon, a security flaw in CuidadoDeSalud.gov -- the Spanish language version of HealthCare.gov -- could have allowed hackers to steal personal information from enrollees as they typed, according to three independent software developers. The Health and Human Services Department repaired the software error after Nextgov inquired ...
ICE Hacked Its Own Employees to Teach Self-Defense in Cyberspace
October 29, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
One federal agency is replacing workforce security awareness tutorials with real world hack attempts to test employee reflexes. So far, 80 percent of the personnel trained have successfully fought off potential cyberspies. The "social engineering" prevention initiative has earned Immigration and Customs Enforcement a nomination for cyber trade group (ISC)2's ...
Payments to HealthCare.gov Contractor Questioned During Medicare.gov Overhaul
October 28, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
Goverment contracts with a major vendor building HealthCare.gov drew scrutiny in the past, a 2007 audit shows. In 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded Canada-based CGI a $94 million contract to construct the public face of the Obamacare insurance marketplace. According to BusinessWeek, that contract has reached ...
