Executive panel discussion at the 2010 BDPA Technology Conference on "Federal IT Initiatives".
Panel members: John James (US Navy), Bob Whitkp (US Navy), Tony McMahon (IRS) and Dr. Anthony Junior (US Navy)
5. Federal IT Initiatives: What's Next? Are you ready? Tony McMahon 7/19/2010 BDPA 2010 National Conference Executive Panel Discussions
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10. Sources Sources: IRS Statistics of Income: http:// www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html Congressional Budget Office http:// www.cbo.gov / Office of Management & Budget http:// www.whitehouse.gov/omb / HIRE ACT: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220326,00.html
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12. BDPA Symposium, Philadelphia Network Centricity 2020 Bob Whitkop Exec Director, NGEN SPO (202)213-7858 Technology in Motion: The changing shapes of the Cloud
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25. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Funding Opportunity Announcement # 10-023 Deadline September 30, 2011
Deliver web services – reduce deployment time for new web services by at least 25% Reduce O&M costs/ increase capacity – 15% increase in capacity Transform IT procurement – lower active category managed spend by at least 10% Effectively address risk management – ensure IT is not a barrier to business continuity Complete industry standard web platform – reduce platform cost by at least 30% in first year Simplify governance – increase capacity of internal processes by at least 30% Pilot and launch new end user technologies – at least one meaningful pilot per year Improve end user support – improve resolution time by 10% Complete CADE2 - improve the use of data to drive decision making across the agency Radically rationalize Application portfolio – reduce on-going application maintenance costs by at least 25% Provide standardized services 25% lower TCO for deployed solutions (e.g., storage) Build internal capability – networks, operations, architecture, cybersecurity, planning Utilize cost and performance data transparency throughout IT – have linked, cascading metrics from CTO to first line managers Partner with the business to more effectively plan demand – drive top down coordination across projects and investments to align and team against all initiatives
Build internal capability – networks, operations, architecture, cybersecurity, planning Utilize cost and performance data transparency throughout IT – have linked, cascading metrics from CTO to first line managers Partner with the business to more effectively plan demand – drive top down coordination across projects and investments to align and team against all initiatives
*Dark cloud: Study finds security risks in virtualization By Kathleen Hickey Mar 18, 2010 http://fcw.com/articles/2010/03/18/dark-cloud-security.aspx Government IT upgrade projects may soon have a new wrench thrown into the works. According to recent research from Gartner, 60 percent of virtual servers are less secure than the ones they replace. The situation is slated to continue through the end of 2015, when the number of insecure virtual servers is expected to drop to 30 percent. "Virtualization is not inherently insecure," said Neil MacDonald, Gartner fellow and vice president. "However, most virtualized workloads are being deployed insecurely. The latter is a result of the immaturity of tools and processes and the limited training of staff, resellers and consultants." Numerous state, local and federal agencies have moved or are moving to virtual servers, including the state of California and the Energy Department. While Gartner estimated that only 18 percent of enterprise data center workloads had been virtualized at the end of 2009, that number is expected to grow to more than 50 percent by the close of 2012. One of the major causes of this issue is a lack of involvement of the IT security team in the architecture and planning stages of development, Gartner said. About 40 percent of the surveyed organizations had not brought security professionals into the projects. Related coverage: IBM launches public cloud service Agencies help test cloud-based file storage system Another risk is that the virtualization layer could compromise all hosted workloads, with hackers already targeting this layer, Gartner said. Gartner recommends keeping the layer as “thin as possible, while hardening the configuration to unauthorized changes." Organizations should not rely on host-based security controls, the report states. Other risks include a lack of visibility and controls on internal virtual networks, which are not visible to network-based security protection devices, such as network-based intrusion prevention systems, and consolidations of workloads of different trust levels on the same physical server without adequate separation. There is also the potential for inadequate administrative access controls and administrative tools for the hypervisor/virtual machine manager layer. Finally, a potential loss of separation duties for network and security controls could lead to inadvertently allowing users to gain access to data that exceeds their normal privilege levels. To address these risks, Gartner recommended treating the virtual network as similar to a physical one, with the same kind of monitoring and separation of workloads and the same team handling both. Additionally, organizations should isolate virtual desktop workloads from the rest of the physical data center and restrict access to the virtualization layer.
**Social media opens new door to cyberattacks, panel says Malware is now No. 1 cybersecurity threat, according to survey By David Hubler Mar 24, 2010 http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/03/24/social-media-cyber-attacks.aspx E-mail attachments are no longer the attack of choice of computer hackers and other individuals intent on gaining access to government and industry systems, security experts said today. As increasing numbers of people adopt social media, those sites are becoming the new attack portal of choice and malware is now the No. 1 threat, panelists said at the FOSE 2010 trade show in Washington, D.C. Two or three years ago, the No. 1 vector for viruses was through e-mail, primarily attachments. But today those attacks account for “the low end of single digits,” said Bob Hansmann, senior product marketing manager at Blue Coat Systems. “ The vast majority of attacks actually come through the Web, and yet it is amazing how few people actually scan their http or https, their secure connections to Web mail,” he said. A recent survey found that the number of people who have accounts at social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, is 10 percent greater than the number of people who have e-mail accounts, Hansmann added. “ That’s where all this malware is coming from,” he said. “People have to start looking beyond e-mail and do something at the gateway. You can’t trust the desktop.” The top three IT security issues today are malware, inappropriate employee activity or network use, and issues related to remote Web access, said Andy Lausch, vice president of CDW Government, citing a recent CDW-G survey. “ The potential for incidents grew dramatically over the past year,” Hansmann said. “We saw the number of malware [incidents] double. Phishing attacks went up 600 percent in 2009.” “ We’re just seeing more attacks so we are seeing more incidents,” he said, adding that although Web 2.0 is not a new technology, it has changed the way people use the Internet. “ A lot of users don’t know how to protect themselves,” he said. He called for more education and increased spending for the new kinds of defenses that are needed, such as better URL filtering There’s a cybersecurity tools gap, said Stan Oien, manager of security practices at CDW-G. Government agencies “fully need to figure out where their gaps are,” he said. “Start with an assessment. Try to get an assessment of the environment. That will give you a baseline, and in that way, you can kind of build your plan moving forward.” “ All too often I see a lot of customers and a lot of agencies that actually don’t even know where their gaps are,” Oien added. “Threats are going to be changing. They’re ever-evolving and becoming much more complex.” The panelists suggested that agencies and contractors consider cloud computing as one way to reduce the number of cyberattacks.