The Daily Scoop Podcast

The house passes a bill in support of the TMF and GSA appoints tech experts for a new fed ramp advisory group.

Earlier this month, the RSA Conference in San Francisco drew crowds of tens of thousands of cybersecurity experts and practitioners, including a huge cohort of cyber officials from the federal government. One of those was Bailey Bickley, the chief of defense industrial base cybersecurity at the NSA. I caught up with Bickley during some of her downtime at RSA to discuss the big takeaways from this year’s conference, as well as all of the work the NSA is doing to help bolster the security of defense contractors, particularly smaller ones that can’t always afford to secure themselves. From CMMC and the new DIB cyber strategy to the free services the NSA is providing to members of the DIB community, we cover it all. Now, let’s go to my conversation with Bailey Bickley.

NSF Funding Cuts Present a National Security Issue and new TMF investments boost agency projects and generative A I digital service delivery and accessibility.

Just recently, federal agencies met some of the key requirements set forth in the Biden administration’s AI executive order that were to be completed within the first 180 days, signaling strong momentum for the federal government establishing a strong foundation of AI development and responsible use. Nick Sinai, former U.S. deputy CTO during the Obama administration and now a senior adviser for the venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners, which focuses on investing in software firms, joins the Daily Scoop to discuss the momentum of the AI EO, a trip he took last year to U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and what he learned there, what federal officials should be thinking about with the election coming up, and much more.

The US and China are Meeting This Week to Talk AI Safety

The Pentagon launches new initiatives for a to reciprocity and digital modernization and the USDS touts its impact over the past year.

More than 60 companies join CISA’s pledge to be Secure by Design And, Chuck Schumer says an AI roadmap is coming soon from the Senate AI working group.

Today on the Daily Scoop podcast from the Scoop News group, a supercomputer sandbox for testing federal AI and evaluating the nation's cyber security posture.

With all of the critical cyberattacks executed through the software supply chain in recent years, you’re sure to have heard about SBOMs, or software bills of materials, which are essentially ingredients lists of the components that make up a piece of software. The Biden administration in its 2021 cybersecurity executive order introduced new guidance for how federal agencies should request SBOMs from vendors when purchasing software so they can better understand what it’s made of and protect against attacks down the supply chain. The Department of Homeland Security, through its Science and Technology Directorate, is advancing federal work on SBOMs, namely through a program led by its Silicon Valley Innovation Program. In partnership with CISA, the Silicon Valley Innovation Program in 2023 awarded funding to a cohort of startups to broadly promote the use of SBOMs by developing two core software modules—a multi-format SBOM translator and a software component identifier translator—to be delivered as open-source libraries which, in turn, will be integrated with their SBOM enabled commercial products. Just recently, that cohort delivered the first of those two tools. Joining the Daily Scoop to discuss the need for SBOMs broadly, the cohort’s progress and what’s next are Melissa Oh, managing director of DHS’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program, and Anil John, SVIP technical manager.

The IRS says it could run out of money to support modernization And, U.S. Cyber Command adds to its top brass The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.