The Government Accountability Office found that 62 percent of major information technology software development investments were certified by the agency chief information officer for using adequate incremental development in fiscal year 2017. However, a number of responses for the remaining investments were incorrectly reported due to agency error. […]
The Department of Energy plans to roll out an enterprise risk management framework that would provide cybersecurity data about the agency in one place and enable better information sharing between departments.
“The enemy isn’t a hacker in the basement,” said Micah Czigan, director of the Integrated Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center for DOE. “The enemy is a world power nation-state.”
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Cybersecurity experts offered solutions to protect the U.S. electric grid, including moving the grid off of the public Internet, and using quantum encryption capabilities. “The nation’s electrical grid is a vital resource upon which our economy and our citizens’ daily lives depend,” said Richard Raines, director of the Electrical and Electronics Systems Research Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “It is also a system that is highly vulnerable to cyber intrusions as more and more utility controls and ‘smart’ technologies rely on public Internet connections.” […]
Agencies are looking at ways to secure the edge of their systems in order to support a more mobile workforce. “The edge is where the mission happens,” said Max Everett, CIO of the Department of Energy. “We’re in the midst of a transformation. It’s modernization with a plan.” […]
Incorporating automation into the U.S. electric grid can both improve recovery capabilities in the event of an outage and present new cybersecurity dangers, according to a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report. […]
The Department of Energy will grant $258 million to six technology companies that are working to create the nation’s first exascale supercomputer. […]
Over the past few years, the department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has started using cloud computing services. Michael Giardinelli, a senior software engineer and technical team lead at PNNL, said the lab’s 16 counterparts across the nation have embarked on similar cloud journeys. “A lot of them are moving in same direction as us,” Giardinelli said. “One key thing is collaboration amongst labs, like when working through the power grid.” […]
IBM on Monday released IBM Q, which introduces the first commercially available quantum computing systems to IBM’s cloud platform. […]
The Department of Energy needs to double down on cybersecurity threats and expand emergency protocol for the nation’s electrical grid, according to the second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER). […]
Michael Johnson, chief information officer of the Department of Energy, has left the agency. […]
The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy recently announced up to $32 million in funding for 10 innovative projects as part of its newest program: Next-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Autonomous On-Road Vehicles. […]
Energy Savings Performance Contracts are a good way for Federal agencies to reduce their data centers’ energy footprint, according to Timothy Unruh, director of the Federal Energy Management Program for the Department of Energy. […]
Cybersecurity professionals can respond and fix vulnerabilities more efficiently by acting like ants, according to Chris Oehmen, senior research scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. […]
In his Monday report on the status of the White House Cancer Moonshot, Vice President Joe Biden listed big data and data sharing as key components in today’s fight against cancer. […]
The White House announced the creation of 29 tools Thursday that use Federal and local data to address problems identified by Federal agencies as part of the Opportunity Project, an open data effort to improve economic mobility for all Americans. […]
Strategic plans and scorecards are essential to effectively budgeting their cybersecurity needs, agency officials said. Michael Johnson, CIO of the Department of Energy, said the agency uses the DOE Cyber Strategy for information sharing and safeguarding, using multifactor authentication, and focusing on research and development. […]
The interconnectedness of the energy sector presents both increased challenges and potential, according to panelists at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology briefing. “The energy sector is clearly the backbone of all 16 critical infrastructures,” said Jay Williams of Parsons. […]
In Netflix’s Stranger Things, the Department of Energy is the villain. So Paul Lester, digital content specialist of DOE’s Office of Public Affairs, wrote a post addressing the show’s depiction of the agency. […]
The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announced a new Funding Opportunity Announcement for joint research on smart grid and energy storage under the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Research. […]
The Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenge for Future Computing asks participants to create a computer that can learn from data and remember information while using the same amount of energy as a human brain. The challenge is a collaboration among several agencies including the National Institute of Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and members of the Intelligence Community. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released its National Strategic Computing Initiative Strategic Plan, which outlines its effort to improve high-performance computing. […]
The Department of Energy is investing $19 million to improve the efficiency of the nation’s buildings. This investment will aim to develop advanced building technologies that will help Americans save money on utility bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs. […]
One of the major problems facing the cybersecurity of the nation’s critical infrastructure is a lack of personnel, according to witnesses at both the House Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Both committees held hearings on the security of critical infrastructure in the U.S. […]
The Department of Energy announced on its website that it would supply its Technology Commercialization Fund with $16 million to bolster 54 projects across 12 national laboratories that aim to move energy technology from DOE’s National Laboratories to the marketplace. […]
The U.S. Energy Information Administration created a free software tool in which users can import data from the agency’s application programming interface into their own Google Sheets. […]
An initiative is underway at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory aiming to prevent hackers from gaining control of parts of the nation’s power grid, or Industrial Control System. As the grid gets smarter, threats increase, including damage to electrical equipment, local power outages, operational halts to production, and more. […]
The key to digital success and development in all levels of government is a strong and dedicated team of leaders, according to Deloitte’s director of government innovation William D. Eggers. “It really does rely on different levels of leadership,” Eggers said in an interview with MeriTalk. “Where you don’t have that leadership, it becomes much more difficult.” […]
The Department of Energy has started a podcast called “Direct Current”–telling stories of how the DOE generates and uses electricity, and what that means for the planet. The first episode discusses solar panels and the associated costs. […]
The sun could pose the largest digital security risk to U.S. critical infrastructure, according to witnesses at a House Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee. “All critical infrastructure sectors are at risk from EMP [electromagnetic pulse],” said Brandon Wales at DHS. […]
Analytics.usa.gov–an official site of the General Services Administration, powered by the Data Analytics Program–added to its site an agency-specific, drop-down menu to filter analytics for 10 Federal agencies’ sites. […]