5G for Government – From Warehouses to Virtual Reality The advent of 5G – fifth-generation mobile communications – is creating a host of opportunities for government applications. A "smart warehouse" at Naval Base Coronado is delivering on optimization of the facility’s operations, including identification of materials and supplies, organization, storage, retrieval and transportation. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is develop...

Cybersecurity is paramount in every phase of a system lifecycle. Professionals involved in Test and Evaluation are increasingly tasked with more rigorous controls, more complicated interconnections, and more contested operating environments. Cybersecurity is applied across all Government domains from common tactical networks to weapon systems. Instead of focusing on the depth of cybersecurity T&E in a single space, this workshop will focus...

It’s that time of year again, when agencies must deal with the effects of operating under a congressional Continuing Resolution. This is not a new exercise – according to an August report by the Government Accountability Office, the federal government has had to operate under CRs in 43 of the past 46 years. While a CR generally continues the funding levels set in the previous fiscal year’s budget, it hurts agencies’ abi...

Just as real-world governments, militaries and diplomats are working to contain kinetic violence in 2022, cyber conflicts in the virtual world are taking place almost every week. While Americans and American agencies have not been as targeted as other countries – Ukraine, Finland, Greece, the United Kingdom, Montenegro, and Latvia, to name just a few – cyber defenders are faced with an onslaught of attacks, whether from criminal or...

The federal government is well ahead of state and local governments in the implementation of a zero trust architecture because of the White House Executive Order on Cybersecurity last year. But state and local agencies see it in their immediate future - 67 percent of state CIOs who responded to the 2021 Annual State CIO Survey anticipate that introducing or expanding a zero-trust framework will receive more attention in the next two to three y...

Modernization is a Journey, not a Destination. Federal agencies raced to update their systems and move as many programs as possible to the cloud during the pandemic. But federal leaders realize that modernization is a continuing process that includes, but is not limited to, updating IT equipment and data centers. It also means upgrading networks and connections, software and services, security, workforce, and acquisition processes. At this sum...

Cybersecurity professionals throughout all levels of government and the private sector are painfully aware of the risks to their own networks posed by third parties with authorized access – but insufficient security measures of their own. From a parts supplier responding to an order sent via email to local government contractors who remotely monitor wastewater plant performance. For instance, a California student-tracking software compan...

Ransomware threats are targeting state and local agencies with increasing frequency. According to the Verizon Data Breach Incident Report 2022, 80% of attacks on public sector systems were financially motivated, and 78% of the breaches came from outside the network. At the same time, some state legislatures have banned state agencies from paying ransomware, with other states considering the same approach. These trends are on a collision course...

Just as the pandemic changed the American workplace, it had a major disruptive effect on colleges and universities across the country, forcing them to adopt new remote learning initiatives and revealing the technological shortcomings that campuses faced. At the same time, it opened opportunities. During the pandemic, Carnegie Mellon University used a rapidly deployed private wireless solution to power live video streams on high definition came...

Current guidance has laid out the cybersecurity priorities that federal agencies should adhere to for the upcoming fiscal year 2024 budget cycle. Civilian agencies will need to focus on making investments within the three cyber investment priority areas: Strengthening the Foundations of Our Digitally-Enabled Future, Deepening Cross-Sector Collaboration in Defense of Critical Infrastructure, and Improving the Defense and Resilience of Governmen...