The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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In November, the Defense Department’s chief information officer’s office received 39 zero trust implementation plans from the military services, defense agencies and combatant commands.

It took 35 full-time staff and nearly four months to review those plans, provide tailored feedback and receive final versions with all recommendations incorporated.

Randy Resnick, the director of the Zero Trust Architecture Program Management Office in the DoD CIO’s office said the lesson they learned about the process is that they can’t repeat it again.

“It was a tremendous effort. We really can’t repeat this process, it is untenable. 35 people across almost four months full time, you start adding up the resource costs of that and that’s not something that we could do on an annual basis. So it became apparent to us that we need to automate this process. We need to put it in electronic form where we could actually apply AI tools to actually ask questions and to achieve answers based on the submissions. That’s where our head is going right now,” Resnick said during the DoD Zero Trust Symposium Tuesday.

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In frequent flyer plans, the more you take-to-the-air, the closer you get to elite status. And, the more you put away in your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), the closer you will get to having TSP-millionaire status. For more on what that money can do for you, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with retired federal manager Abe Grungold of AB Financial Services.

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The storied Fort Knox has a smaller mission than it historically did. That's because of the work the Base Realignment and Closure Commission did in the early 2000s. Fort Knox still houses gold and has a human resources function. For details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with Jim Iacocca, the President of the Knox Regional Development Alliance.

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Organizations -- both public and private -- have been scattering billions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices all over the world. These devices are typically low-power and have low computing capacity. Yet they are still potential entry points for cybersecurity attacks. Now the FCC has established a voluntary cybersecurity labeling program for IoT devices, as well as some proposed rules. For details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with Katy Milner, a partner at Hogan Lovells.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Cyber Safety Review Board is lambasting the cloud security practices of one of the government’s biggest technology vendors.

The CSRB, in its report released Tuesday, details the review of the summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online intrusion. The report includes also several recommendations for how agencies could improve cloud security across government and beyond.

The board found a “cascade of Microsoft’s avoidable errors” contributed to an incident where hackers pilfered unclassified emails from 22 organizations and more than 500 victims, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, and House Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.)

“The board finds that this intrusion was preventable and should never have occurred,” the report states. “The board also concludes that Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul, particularly in light of the company’s centrality in the technology ecosystem and the level of trust customers place in the company to protect their data and operations.”

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The Census Bureau is looking to roll out a remote work policy it drafted at the end of last year, but is rethinking how many employees can opt in, after Congress recently set minimum utilization rates for federal buildings.

The Census Bureau agreed to a remote work policy last December, and a working group is working on implementation details.

Census Bureau Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Ron Jarmin told employees in an all-staff email last week that once an implementation plan is finalized in the coming weeks, employees will be approved for remote work “in special situations determined by the remote work implementation working group.”

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Contractors feeling beset by false claims act lawsuits, feel that way for good reason. The number of cases launched by the Justice Department reached an all-time high last year: 500 cases. How come? For details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Perkins Coie partner Alexander Canizares.

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