FedScoop Radio

The remote workforce has opened up the floodgates on cyber risk, presenting new challenges to operate safely in distributed environments. In addition to staying on top of growing threats, government CTOs and CISOs are also required to keep their environments current on an extensive list of federal compliance and regulatory guidance. Microsoft’s Alym Rayani explains how IT leaders will benefit from AI-enabled tools to converge security and compliance. Sponsored by Microsoft. Guest: Alym Rayani, General Manager, Compliance Marketing, Microsoft Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Add: Look for more coverage of “IT Security in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The extensive ecosystem of open source partners and applications can be a boon to federal agencies trying to boost their modernization efforts. IT leader Christine Cox says that agencies which work with the global open source development community are able to accelerate service delivery and overcome many of the common barriers to cloud modernization. Developing applications using open source tools can help federal agencies future-proof digital services, by avoiding vendor lock-in, enhance their enterprise security and even support their high-performance computing requirements, says Cox. Guest: Christine Cox, Regional VP, Federal Sales, SUSE Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the federal government’s workforce to cloud-based telework and agency leaders need to address security concerns around access to sensitive information. Even before COVID-19, the risk associated with securing federal IT systems and their underlying data remained high after a variety of high-profile attacks, such as the 2016 breach at the Office of Personnel Management. According to Dan Prieto from Google Cloud, agencies need to continue to evolve both policies and practices to drive down risk. “[O]ur adversaries continue to be determined and they continue to be more aggressive. And their goals continue to expand: They seek to weaken democratic institutions; they seek to disrupt our critical infrastructures in health care and finance and government; and an emergency [within the public] service sector is something that we should be very wary of at this time of the COVID pandemic,” Prieto says. This podcast is sponsored by Google Cloud. Guest: Dan Prieto, Strategic Executive, Public Sector, Google Cloud Host:Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Add: Look for more coverage of “IT Security in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen and www.statescoop.com/listen

Agencies that are implementing the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program have an opportunity to use their CDM data to increase the value of cyberdefense and cyber-operations programs. There's a wealth of sensor data for CDM reporting that has an untapped value. Operationalizing it lets CDM become more than a compliance program, says Splunk's Frank Dimina. Fusing CDM data with other information like perimeter traffic, IPS and firewall data can actually increase insights for the SOC. This podcast is sponsored by Splunk. Guest: Frank Dimina, Vice President, Public Sector, Splunk Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Security in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Defense Department agencies and their mission partners that are looking to work on projects in a DOD-authorized cloud environment can do so almost immediately — and at significantly lower costs — by using a program called milCloud 2.0, says an executive leading the program. The milCloud 2.0 program, which is supported by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and GDIT, is designed specifically to help DOD agencies accelerate adoption of cloud services. The milCloud 2.0 platform is a fit-for purpose commercial cloud program managed by GDIT that sits in a multi-tenant, “Impact Level 5” cloud environment within DISA facilities. The unique arrangement allows DOD project teams to bypass much of the red tape and added costs associated with projects conducted on government-sanctioned public clouds, according to Brian Whitenight, who directs partner accounts for milCloud 2.0 at GDIT. Guest: Brian Whitenight, Partner Account Director for milCloud 2.0, GDIT Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The shift to remote work during the pandemic has given ransomware attackers a wider foothold to exploit IT vulnerabilities, forcing federal IT leaders to build new trust mechanisms and develop stronger safeguards to secure their data, say security experts in a new FedScoop podcast. The sudden increase in personal computing devices connecting to agency networks — and the ability to compromise the home networks they dial in from — have made it easier for ransomware hackers to find pathways into agency data systems. Building a comprehensive protection strategy around those additional endpoints and ensuring data is properly stored and protected are critical steps for agencies to take now, according to Mike Malaret, director of sales engineering for defense and intelligence communities at Veritas Technologies. But he and Veritas colleagues Barry Levine, director federal healthcare and civilian strategic programs, and Senior Director Dave Cerjan, also stress the importance of having modern data backup and recovery systems in place, so that in the event that ransomware attacks do occur, agencies have the means to isolate their backup data in order to recover quickly. Sponsored by Veritas Technologies and Carahsoft. Guests: Barry Levine, Director, Federal Healthcare, Veritas Technologies Dave Cerjan, Senior Director, Civilian Strategic Programs, Veritas Technologies Mike Malaret, Director, Sales Engineering, Defense and Intelligence Communities, Veritas Technologies Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Security in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Social safety nets have proven to be especially vital during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But in some cases, the underlying legacy IT infrastructure supporting the modern delivery of those services has failed them. Artificial intelligence and machine learning, however, have played an increasingly important role in helping agencies adapt to the challenges of the pandemic — particularly with volume and scale. “Volume is a significant problem for all of the social safety net programs. They are seeing record numbers of applications and because the systems that support those programs are typically older legacy systems — some of them as old as 40 years old — they can't scale to meet that demand,” Winkler says. On top of that, the CARES Act — which provided relief in response to the coronavirus — created some new programs that the inflexible legacy systems could not readily incorporate. “The real issue is how does technology — and how will agencies — continue to serve this high volume of clients as we begin to reopen and recover?” she says in the podcast. Sponsored by Google Cloud. Guest: Denise Winkler, Strategic Business Executive, Global Public Sector Group, Google Cloud Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage from the "Future-Ready Government” series on www.fedscoop.com/listen and www.statescoop.com/listen

Federal agencies are finding more ways to adopt robotic process automation (RPA) tools to meet the needs of citizens and to help their employees use their time more productively. Agency leaders from Customs and Border Protection and Department of Labor discuss how they are offloading mundane business tasks so federal workers can focus on more valuable work. “Most adoption of RPA starts in back-office applications. It starts out in finance, HR and IT services" and reduces the instances of human error or fraud that drive up costs, adds UiPath executive Christopher Townsend to the conversation. Hear the discussion on the benefits RPA brings in offloading workloads to shift staff to higher-value work. Guests: Louis S. Charlier, deputy CIO for the U.S. Department of Labor, Sunil Madhugiri, CTO for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Christopher Townsend, vice president of federal sales, UiPath Host: Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

As federal agencies have worked to engage more with citizens in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve looked to artificial intelligence to help with the spike in people seeking information and services. Agencies saw a major uptick in citizens just wanting more information on how the virus is spread, its symptoms and how many people had contracted it. As measures kicked in to stop the spread of the virus, almost immediately that transitioned into Americans seeking services like unemployment. Jeff Brown discusses how AI and chatbots are proving instrumental to answering frequently asked questions for a majority of calls, freeing up telephone lines for more pressing issues. Sponsored by Google Cloud. Guest: Jeff Brown, Strategic Business Executive, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage about preparing a “Future-Ready Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a greater need to analyze data from outside government agencies' purview to better inform decisions on how and when employees should return to offices — things like travel patterns, supply chains or health developments. In this podcast, experts discuss data management and analysis tools to help agency leaders mitigate health risks and supply chain weakness throughout the pandemic. Sponsored by TIBCO. Guests (left to right): Cuong Nguyen, Vice President, Federal Sales and Michael O’Connell, Chief Analytics Officer at TIBCO Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen