As a heat dome enveloped the nation’s capital for much of the week, the heat also went up in the Middle East – with repercussions that may be felt by government agencies under increasing threats of cyber retaliation from Iran. The government tech media reported on those developments this week. There also seemed to be an unusually large number of articles focused on new government artificial intelligence (AI) deployments. Or perhaps that’s just the new normal. Here are the trending stories from the past week:
Cyber Alert from DHS
The mainstream media closely covered the developments in the Middle East after the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Iran on June 21. For their part, government tech media outlets mostly reported more narrowly on increasing cyberthreats against U.S. networks and infrastructure as a result of the conflict:
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put the nation on alert early this week to the dangers of cyberattacks that could be launched by Iran, John Curran wrote this week in MeriTalk.
- In his coverage of the alert for Nextgov/FCW, David DiMolfetta noted that Iranian hackers tend to launch distributed denial of service attacks against aerospace, oil, gas and telecommunications entities and that Iranian claimed responsibility for an attack that temporarily shut down Truth Social, the President’s social media platform.
- Kristina Beek reported in cybersecurity tech trade Dark Reading that the alert also said Iranian hackers are likely to target U.S. officials they believe are associated with previous military operations against the country.
- As noted in an article by Mark Pomerleau in DefenseScoop, the U.S. Cyber Command played a role in the bombings of the Iranian nuclear sites, but few details about the command’s role in the operation were available.
- In a related piece, DiMolfetta reported on how some Iranian hackers are increasingly shifting operations from technical intrusions to psychological manipulation “to manufacture panic about hacks that never happened.”
The Rush to AI
Quite a few stories came out this week about various agencies seeking public input on their plans to use AI to improve operations. In Congress, various lawmakers are scrambling to oversee how the technology is rolled out:
- Jason Miller of Federal News Network wrote about a new request for information (RFI) from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office asking for ideas on how the agency can accelerate its use of AI to improve the efficiency in the patent and trademark examining processes.
- Customs and Border Protection is also looking to industry for help in applying AI techniques to help users find patterns in large datasets related to identifying travelers entering the U.S., reported by Ross Wilkers in Washington Technology.
- The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also issued an RFI seeking an AI-powered investigative analytics platform to uncover and disrupt transnational criminal networks – and monitor a million people, Weslan Hansen wrote in MeriTalk.
- Hansen also published a piece noting that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is requesting public comments on its new chatbot to help streamline the cybersecurity guidelines that it creates. In a related story in GovCIO Media, Silvia Oakland quoted Martin Stanley from NIST, who said at a recent AI workshop that the agency will soon publish guidelines focused on identifying “what the unique risks to AI systems are that cybersecurity can [help] with.”
- The CIA is focusing its early AI-related efforts on cybersecurity. In an interview on Fed Gov Today with Francis Rose, the agency’s CIO La’Naia Jones said that was a natural starting point due to the agency’s growing need for real-time threat detection.
- On the defense side, a new Department of the Navy memo detailing its top five technology priorities for future investment placed AI and quantum technologies at the forefront of those plans, according to coverage by Lisbeth Perez in MeriTalk. Covering the memo in DefenseScoop, Jon Harper noted that AI was at the very top of the list of technology priorities.
- In AI news from Capitol Hill, Susan Monarez, the nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this week told lawmakers she is committed to using AI tech to support CDC operations and public health outcomes, as reported by Grace Dille in MeriTalk.
- Reporting for FedScoop, Rebecca Heilweil wrote about proposed legislation that would bar federal agencies from using AI linked to the Chinese government – the latest in a series of congressional proposals focused on DeepSeek, a Chinese startup whose low-cost AI model has stirred panic in U.S. tech and AI companies.
- Senators on the panel overseeing the Department of Veterans Affairs wrote to the agency’s inspector general to probe mass contract cancellations and the role that AI played in determining those actions, a development covered by Edward Graham in Nextgov/FCW.
Finally, please note that we’ve posted a new episode of the “Gov & Beyond” podcast featuring an interview with John Curran and Grace Dille of MeriTalk in which they discuss what catches their eye in federal technology news. I’m certain you’ll enjoy it.
This newsletter will be taking next week off to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. Please return in two weeks for our next edition. In the meantime, you can subscribe to this newsletter on LinkedIn or via the form below. Have a great Independence Day!
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