In today’s edition of “This Week in Government Tech Media,” we look at the trending coverage in the following areas:
Civilian Agency AI
Last week, we looked at several media reports on AI developments in the Defense space; this week we look at AI news in the federal civilian and intelligence communities.
The Department of Energy announced the Electricity Demand Growth Resource Hub, an online resource to help power grid operators meet the growing demand for sustainable energy fueled by the growth of AI systems, according to an article in Nextgov/FCW by Alexandra Kelley late last week. This week, Kelley had the story on how the National Science Foundation has allocated over $70 million to a new initiative to promote AI for bioscience research. Also at Nextgov/FCW, Edward Graham reported the results of a survey that shows government workers who deal with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests want AI tools to help them respond to the onslaught of requests generated by – you guessed it – AI bots.
At MeriTalk, Cate Burgan reported that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) set a December 16 deadline for agencies to submit annual inventories of their AI use cases.
Intelligence Community AI
On the intel side, Lisbeth Perez of MeriTalk reported from this week’s 2024 AFCEA/INSA Intelligence & National Security Summit on comments made by officials from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the FBI and DARPA raising concerns about the escalating challenges presented by AI regarding data authenticity. Reporting from the same conference, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. of Breaking Defense published comments by Mark Munsell, director of data and digital innovation at NGA, a project to use AI to exploit the agency’s “gold mine” of satellite imagery. Meanwhile, Justin Doubleday of Federal News Network shared comments from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines at this week’s summit promoting closer collaboration between intelligence agencies and industry on initiatives focused on AI and other priorities.
Cybersecurity Oversight
We’re seeing a lot of activity emanating from cybersecurity oversight bodies. Late last week, Madison Alder of FedScoop broke the news on updated guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on digital identities to secure the various methods people use to prove who they are when accessing government services. Natalie Alms of Nextgov/FCW also provided extensive insight into the NIST guidance.
In other cyber oversight news, MeriTalk’s Burgan reported that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a new vulnerability to its known exploited vulnerability catalog following a warning that Chinese state-sponsored threat actor Volt Typhoon is actively exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in network management platform Versa Director. Burgan separately wrote that the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) would study the government’s national preparedness for its transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), following NIST’s publication this month of three standards on PQC.
In addition, MeriTalk’s Perez revealed that the Federal Chief Information Security Officer Council and Chief Data Officer Council will unveil a new data security framework in the coming weeks with the aim of improving data protection across government agencies.
And in perhaps the most broadly covered federal cybersecurity story of the week, the Justice Department announced that it would sue the Georgia Institute of Technology and an affiliated research organization over allegations that they “knowingly failed” to meet cybersecurity requirements for Pentagon contracts, according to Graham’s article in Nextgov/FCW. The news was also covered by Doubleday for Federal News Network, Weslan Hansen for MeriTalk and Tim Starks for CyberScoop.
Next Week: 15th Annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit
Coming straight out of Labor Day weekend, we have the annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit. As always, they have an incredible line-up of speakers from across the federal government, contracting community and the cybersecurity industry. Myself and my colleagues from the W2 Communications team will be on-site throughout the event. Stop by the Carahsoft booth (#113) to see our Creative team in action as they film for Fed Gov Today!