A panel of experts warned lawmakers on Thursday about the looming threat of a cyber attack emanating from Iran, an increasingly isolated nation that has been linked to numerous attacks against the United States in recent years including a plot last year to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON -- To coincide with the debut of its new government cloud offering, Salesforce.com brought its Cloudforce conference here to the nation's capital to trumpet the emergence of the social enterprise, which the company is touting as the next major evolution in business computing.
Salesforce.com, already a leading provider of cloud services to the public sector, is doubling down on its government business, unveiling on Wednesday a major initiative to host federal, state and local agencies' computing operations in a multi-tenant cloud environment, along with a new app marketplace and a training program to equip integrators with the skills to help government clients shift to the cloud.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has unveiled a blueprint for advancing career and technical education to address the shortage of critical skills in growing industries such as IT and advanced manufacturing.
A coalition of leading technology industry groups is calling on lawmakers to pass a controversial cybersecurity bill, offering a broad show of support as the measure heads to the House floor for debate next week.
Supporters of a controversial cybersecurity bill have issued a revised discussion draft of the legislation in an effort to address the concerns raised by privacy advocates and civil liberties groups.
In the technology policy world, the year opened with what appeared to be a short road to passage of controversial intellectual property legislation that-- while opposed by civil rights and consumer advocacy groups and many Web firms-- had the backing of the heavyweights in the film, television and music industries, special-interest groups that are used to getting their way in Washington.
In the aftermath of the embarrassing leak of hundreds of thousands of sensitive government and military documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, the Obama administration formed an interagency task force to refine the government's defenses against insider threats.
Federal cybersecurity officials on Wednesday gave lawmakers a sobering warning about the vulnerabilities of critical information technology systems across the public and private sectors, describing a laundry list of threats and the challenge of keeping up with hackers who are continually seeking new methods of attack.
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday released the long-awaited final version of its report on online consumer privacy, issuing a set of recommendations broadly consistent with an earlier draft, including a call for a do-not-track tool that would enable users to opt out of data collection and targeted marketing programs on the Web.
After coming into office on promises of open government, transparency and accountability, the Obama administration has come under fire from critics who charge that the actions of the executive branch have not lived up to the rhetoric, and that too many of the government's activities remain shrouded in secrecy.
Another senior Obama administration official has offered an endorsement of major cybersecurity legislation pending in the Senate, with Commerce Secretary John Bryson adding his name to the backers of the measure in the executive branch.
Projection screens track social media activity in the operations center at the Red Cross headquarters
House republicans and senior executives in the telecom industry came out swinging on Wednesday against a forceful government role in overseeing cybersecurity in the private sector.
A group of Republican senators on Thursday introduced cybersecurity legislation that they positioned as a far more limited alternative to the comprehensive, bipartisan bill introduced last month.