Tag Archives: VA

Celebrating 20 Years of Cybersecurity and Preparing for 20 More

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For the past 20 years, October has come to signify more than pumpkins, ghosts, and candy. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance have led the annual effort to raise awareness among the general public about everyone's role in keeping our increasingly digital world more secure.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month provides a platform for a wide variety of government and private organizations to deliver education about good cyber hygiene and highlight the role everyday actions have on the security of the systems we depend on. Continue reading →

How Blockchain Unlocks Government Challenges

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Blockchain is best known as the power behind digital currency, but the base technology has so many more applications. At the root of blockchain is its ability to record the transactions of assets. This visibility is key to the digital transformation of government services and operations.

Supply Chain

The most obvious use of blockchain may be in the movement of goods, providing a record of "ownership" of a specific asset and the path it has taken to get to its present location. The digital tracking removes the challenges of moving paperwork (either hard copy or electronic) between organizational boundaries, enabling a digital token to serve that same purpose.

Just because the ledger is "public" does not mean it is not secure. The U.S. Department of Defense is using blockchain to provide a single source of truth for tracking materials. It has proven to optimize processes and reduce costs, enhancing government readiness. Continue reading →

Ensuring Equity in AI

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Improving equity for citizens is a key goal of the Biden Administration. At the same time, agencies across government are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to better use data for a variety of tasks and decision making. Seeing the increasing role of AI in day-to-day operations, the government is looking for ways to ensure that the technology is used fairly and safely without impinging on the innovation being felt by AI adoption in government.

AI as an Administration Focus

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a blueprint for a "Bill of Rights" to provide some guidelines for the development and use of AI in government. It details the roles various agencies need to play to ensure that AI tools align with privacy rights and civil liberties. Continue reading →

Staying Ahead of the Bad Guys: Investing in Cybersecurity

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Agencies are challenged to move more and more services online, become more transparent, and leverage new streams of data from the Internet of Things (IoT) for better decision making, all while securing the systems and the data they hold. If that is not challenging enough, cyber threats against all of these efforts are continually evolving. A series of strategies and ongoing guidance are helping agencies prioritize work and budget requests to make the most impactful investments in their cybersecurity infrastructure.

The National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) provides broad guidance to help position the United States to build a digital ecosystem that is more easily and inherently defensible, resilient, and aligned with its values. Efforts to do so are organized around five pillars:

1) Defend Critical Infrastructure

2) Disrupt and Dismantle Threat Actors

3) Shape Market Forces to Drive Security and Resilience

4) Invest in a Resilient Future

5) Forge International Partnerships to Pursue Shared Goals Continue reading →

Geospatial Technologies Find Their Place in Planning

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Geospatial data ties information to a location. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) layers this location data over any other data set, creating some important insight for public policy, infrastructure, and citizen service planning in a number of areas.

  • Sustainability - perhaps the most obvious use of geospatial data is in helping understand the current environment. With a view of air quality, tree cover, water levels, and more, communities can not only monitor ongoing changes but model what impact new construction or programs could have on an area. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created an interactive map to help state and local leaders understand the environmental burdens on their communities' health. Combining 36 health, social and environmental indicators, the application assigns an environmental justice score per census tract. This allows officials to see and then prioritize action for vulnerable areas. If a local government is looking to add a manufacturing plant, they can not only see what current pollution levels are, but can also determine if an area is made up of largely non-English speakers so that they know how best to communicate and involve the community in decisions about the plant.
  • Policing - The Justice Department is looking for proposals that apply geospatial data to track criminal activity affecting businesses and neighborhoods. Understanding where and when incidents occur and who may be involved helps police departments target patrols and implement programs that can help prevent incidents.
  • Public health - The Washington Department of Health's GeoHUB layers various department datasets over location information. Geospatial information helps pinpoint access to services across the state. Staff can analyze the state's transportation network and the location of, say, dialysis facilities to identify where residents do not have easy access. Presenting this information on a map makes it more digestible than having to parse out information from multiple charts and graphs.
  • Elections - State elections divisions use geospatial information and systems to enhance the efficiency and utility of election systems. A huge problem is ensuring addresses are correctly aligned to the right precincts so when people register to vote they are assigned the right polling place. Precinct lines are changed on the local level while registration frequently happens at the state level. Mapping addresses with precincts in real time allows for more accurate assignments.

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