The growing concern of cyberattacks directed at government agencies cannot be ignored. However, foreign nations attempting to gain access to confidential U.S. data may not be the only issue at play here. Incidents of ransomware – a type of cyberattack that encrypts the users files and demands compensation before the person can regain access – are growing rapidly. What's more, it appears the hackers behind these attacks are becoming bolder every day. What does this malware mean for government agencies, and what can be done to stop it in its tracks?  Read More

It's a pretty commonly held fact in the cybersecurity community that older systems are generally easier to exploit compared to newer ones. A lot of this has to do with the fact that hackers have simply had a lot of time to tool around with them, and therefore know where the vulnerabilities are. This is especially true for the U.S. government's aging IT infrastructure.  Read More

Over the past six years, federal data centers have undergone a number of changes. The 2010 Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative and the 2014 Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act have redefined limits for these facilities and have aimed to minimize the overall sprawl across government agencies. While these two efforts have done a lot to reduce the space, equipment, energy and other resources taken up by data centers, there is still a lot of work to do before government groups can reach their established goals.  Read More

A report from the International Data Corporation is shedding light on just how important cloud services are to modern governmental functions. The study's researchers expected the federal cloud budget to increase from $6.65 billion in 2014 to $11.46 billion by 2019, according to TechNewsWorld contributor John K. Higgins. A second study by Deltek confirmed this upward trend, although this report's final number differed from IDC's due to a disagreement over IT taxonomy.  Read More

The U.S. government is taking some major steps to increase its digital presence on the battlefield. Military-grade hackers launched an assault against ISIS recently, utilizing denial of service attacks as well as other techniques to overload their computer and cellular networks, according to Government Technology contributor W.J. Hennigan. This marks the first time a country has openly admitted to committing an act of cyberwar.  Read More

The movement of large portions of life to a more digital space has spawned a huge influx in data collection. Government agencies and private businesses alike are gathering massive amounts of information in a trend that has been dubbed big data. And yet, many of these organizations are struggling under the weight of all this raw data.  Read More

As the Internet and similar technologies began to creep further into government operations, hacking became the go-to method for collecting intelligence about foreign entities. It was a lot easier than sending in a spy to figure out what other countries were up to, and it didn't involve risking anyone's life to do so. However, recent developments into what a country can do with a cyberattack have shown warfare itself might see a major overhaul due to the digital revolution.  Read More

For years, the only place to actually get work done was in the office. An employee could expect to be able to get a certain amount of their duties done at home, but this was a rare occurrence and certainly didn't pertain to a full-day's work. Advancements in technology have changed this, with more organizations beginning to allow employees to complete tasks outside the office.  Read More

It would appear that California is attempting to make a more transparent government by creating an open data portal for the entire state. This portal would put multi-agency data under a single umbrella, allowing the Golden State's citizens to have an in-depth look at what kind of information has been collected by each department.  Read More

A cyberattack on a private institution that works with U.S. intelligence agencies has revealed yet another flaw in how many government officials view cybersecurity. The hack of Juniper Networks, which was announced Dec. 17, 2015, has resulted in a data breach that could contain encrypted correspondence of government agencies spanning more than three years.  Read More