A low-key change has taken place that sources say has shifted the National Institute of Standards and Technology Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity from a purely voluntary practice to a mandatory standard for Federal agencies….Reactions to the White House’s open source coding push….And grumbling about Silicon Valley imports. […]

MeriTalk discussed the voting process and election security with Matthew Davis, the chief information officer at the Virginia Department of Elections, at the 2016 Akamai Government Forum in Washington, D.C.   […]

Department of Veterans Affairs CIO LaVerne Council has ordered VA CISO Brian Burns to “redirect his exclusive focus on VA’s role in the Interagency Program Office.” Council also tapped Ron Thompson to serve as interim VA CISO. … VA kicked off its 2016 Information Security and Privacy Awareness Week Speaker Series, but problems dogged the online chat and telephone dial-in.

MeriTalk recently broke the news that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is planning to hire its first chief information officer. Sounds pretty straightforward, but there is much more to the story and the timing of this new job search at ODNI.

It has become so tough for Federal agencies to find skilled technical talent that the National Security Agency is collecting resumes from “former civilian affiliates” who have the necessary skills, experience, and security clearance to help the agency “augment the existing work force on high priority projects or programs.” … A pilot program is underway to demonstrate the use of federated online identity technologies for use by hospitals and patients. … And DOD continues to make significant progress on its insider threat detection program and the intelligence community’s new continuous evaluation effort.