Lawmaker calls for an independent review of cybersecurity in the U.S. courts system

U.S., System, calls, Review, Independent, lawmaker, courts, 'cybersecurity'
  • After a high-profile hack, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is calling for an independent review of cybersecurity in the U.S. courts system. In a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts, Wyden said the federal Judiciary has fallen short in protecting its sensitive IT systems. He pointed to a recent intrusion of the courts’ case management system. Hackers reportedly took advantage of vulnerabilities that were brought to light five years ago, after a separate hack of the case management system. Wyden says Roberts should commission a National Academy of Sciences review of the two security incidents.
    (Wyden letter to SCOTUS on US courts hack – Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.))
  • An IRS watchdog said call wait time metrics don’t tell the full story. The IRS said it answered about 88% of calls during last year’s tax filing season and that taxpayers waited an average of three minutes on hold. But the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that metric only accounts for phone lines that make up two-thirds of total call volume. The watchdog said that wait times were much longer for those other calls, about 17 minutes to 19 minutes on average.
  • The Navy has a new top leader. Adm. Daryl Caudle was sworn in as the chief of naval operations on Monday. His appointment ends a six-month stretch without a permanent chief of naval operations following Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s dismissal in February. Caudle said that improving quality of life for sailors, including housing and health care, will be one of his top priorities. Caudle succeeds Adm. James Kilby, who had been serving in an acting role since President Donald Trump fired Franchetti.
  • Some employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency are publicly pushing back against cuts under the Trump administration. More than 180 current and former FEMA employees have signed a public letter pushing back against staffing cuts and other changes under the Trump administration. The letter released Monday warns the cuts could reverse reforms FEMA made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006. They said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s requirement to review all contracts over $ 100,000 are hampering FEMA operations. The letter calls on Congress to make FEMA an independent-level agency and protect staff from politically motivated firings.
  • The Defense Department is reminding program managers and contracting officers that self-attestation by vendors for the initial application of Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification requirements will be enough in most circumstances. A new memo from acting DoD CIO Katie Arrington emphasizes the phased rollout of the new cybersecurity requirements that is scheduled to start in October. Arrington said program managers and contracting officers can better prepare to apply CMMC to solicitations by taking training courses offered at the Defense Acquisition University. DoD is still waiting for OMB to sign off on the final CMMC rule.
    (DoD CIO – DoD CIO’s office tells service, defense agencies to get ready for CMMC )
  • The Defense Department is dismantling its decades-old Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System process. In an Aug. 20 memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg directed the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immediately start the “disestablishment” of JCIDS and ordered the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which oversees the process, to stop validating service-level requirements to the “maximum extent permitted by law.” Instructions and manuals governing JCIDS will be rescinded within the next 120 days. The JROC will now serve as the Pentagon’s single forum for identifying and ranking “Key Operational Problems” the joint force faces. The memo also directs the DoD to set up the Requirements and Resourcing Alignment Board.
  • A career employee at the General Services Administration is now serving as its top federal buildings official, at least for now. GSA has designated Andrew Heller to serve as the acting commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. The last permanent commissioner, Michael Peters, stepped down last month, just before the rollout of an agency reorganization plan. The Trump administration said it’s looking to cut the Public Buildings Service’s staff by 63%.
    (Leadership directory – General Services Administration )
  • AI cloud services now will go to the front of the security certification line. The cloud security program known as FedRAMP will begin prioritizing certain AI cloud services for authorization based on five criteria. The CIO Council in an Aug. 12 letter asked FedRAMP to focus on cloud services that provide access to conversational AI engines designed for routine and repeated use by federal workers. With that in mind, one of the new criteria is for AI tools for which there is demand from at least five CFO Act agencies or that are specifically recommended by the CIO Council. The FedRAMP program office said there are no AI cloud services that currently meet all five criteria.

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