This Week in Government Tech Media – August 10, 2026

By Brad Bass /

You may feel a sense of deja vu looking at the top stories covered by the government tech media over the past week. First, we saw the return of widespread reporting on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) across multiple publications. There were also plenty of articles that elaborated on reports from the previous week regarding cyberattacks on U.S. water facilities. Find the details and links to the article below:

Watchdog Hammers DOGE

DOGE was all over the news during the early days of the current administration but almost seems like a footnote now. That didn’t keep the organization from grabbing headlines across the government tech media last week, following the release of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that criticized it on multiple fronts:

  • The GAO found that a website created by DOGE to tally its purported cost savings contained myriad data quality issues and inaccuracies, according to an article by Madison Alder in FedScoop.
  • Grace Dille of MeriTalk wrote that the GAO said DOGE failed to provide information to verify 96% of its claimed savings – reported by DOGE as $110 billion across contracts, grants and leases.
  • The GAO reported that DOGE’s website listed contracts that were not actually cancelled, took credit for leases that were in the process of termination before DOGE’s existence and did not adequately explain how savings were calculated, according to coverage by Christian Robles in Nextgov/FCW. 
  • In his analysis for Washington Technology, Nick Wakeman wrote that the DOGE website was “always problematic for its inaccuracies and misrepresentations” and that the GAO “put a bow on that reputation” with its report hammering DOGE for “its lack of transparency, overstated savings and data quality issue.”
  • In a separate piece, FedScoop’s Alder noted that GAO said only 64 of the 206 DOGE personnel could verify they held the appropriate credentials associated with ethics and records management training and financial disclosures.
  • The GAO could not determine whether DOGE personnel completed required ethics and records management training or filed required financial disclosures because the Executive Office of the President and 10 executive agencies did not provide all requested records, Lisbeth Perez reported in MeriTalk.
  • In his coverage for Government Executive, Sean Michael Newhouse noted that the lack of information on DOGE staff member credentials raises concerns about possible conflicts of interest regarding their activities.

Attacks on Water Facilities

A range of publications followed up on the previous week’s reports of cyber attacks against water systems in Minnesota. Articles last week noted additional states that were impacted and expert warnings that there might be more attacks:

  • Since the broadly publicized attacks in Minnesota, Michigan and Georgia were among the latest to say at least some of their water systems had been compromised, with the focus of the attacks apparently against the programmable logic controllers which command various pieces of water equipment, Chris Teale noted in Route Fifty.
  • Reporting from the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas last week, David DiMolfetta of Nextgov/FCW reported that federal cyber officials are still finding water system controls exposed to the public internet, even as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI help utilities recover from a series of cyberattacks affecting at least 12 states.
  • DiMolfetta also wrote about the Water Watch Center, a new program to assist water providers in multiple states as they grapple with possible Iran-linked cyber intrusions against water infrastructure.
  • Following last week’s reports of cyber attacks on water systems across several U.S. states, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this week announced more than $9 million in grants to improve the cybersecurity of dozens of water systems across her state, according to coverage by Colin Wood in StateScoop.
  • Rae D. DeShong of Government Technology reported on calls from cybersecurity advocates for new legislation, funding and federal direction in light of threats to water systems across the country.
  • Emma Woolacott of tech trade publication IT Pro interviewed experts who expressed concerns that the recent attacks might represent just the beginning of a pending wave of attacks on critical infrastructure. 
  • Bearing out those warnings, the U.S. Coast Guard said it is monitoring the aftermath of a cyber attack that disrupted gate operations at all three of North Carolina’s port facilities last week, though it offered few details as the investigation into the breach continues, Greg Otto noted in CyberScoop.

Upcoming Industry Events

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