Government Executive - Tech

Russian hackers can steal government emails without victims clicking a link, cyber agencies warn

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:30:00 -0400

Russian state-backed hackers have exploited a vulnerability in widely used email software to steal messages, passwords and authentication data from Western government agencies and other organizations, U.S. and allied cyber-intelligence authorities said Thursday.

The campaign is notable because it does not require victims to click a malicious link or download an attachment. The exploit can instead activate when someone simply opens or previews an email in an unpatched version of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite — a popular alternative to major collaborative messaging platforms like Microsoft Exchange or Google Workspace — according to a joint advisory issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency and FBI.

The Russian hacking group, known primarily as Laundry Bear, has successfully targeted more than 10 organizations since July 2025, the agencies said. The campaign has hit the defense industrial base, federal and local governments, law enforcement, technology companies, educational institutions, media outlets and nongovernmental organizations.

The hackers sought to steal email addresses, passwords and two-factor authentication tokens, which could allow them to retain access to compromised accounts even after obtaining a victim’s password. Their tools also attempted to collect an organization’s email directory, as much as 90 days of a victim’s communications and other sensitive information.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network purchased a Zimbra standard support subscription in February 2025, according to federal contracting data listed in GovTribe, a federal market intelligence platform owned by Nextgov/FCW parent company GovExec. The purchase does not indicate whether FinCEN used the vulnerable version of the software or was targeted in the campaign.

“Unlike traditional phishing that attempts to persuade a user to take an action, such as clicking a link or downloading a file, Laundry Bear’s current campaign uses a zero-click exploit that only requires a user to view a malicious email,” CISA said in a statement.

Proofpoint, which also investigated the activity, describes the technique as a “half-click” exploit because the victim must still open or preview the email. The company said no additional interaction is required once the message appears in a vulnerable Zimbra webmail client.

The emails were sent from both attacker-controlled Proton Mail accounts and addresses that had already been compromised, according to Proofpoint.

In one example released by the company, the sender claimed to represent a Belgian media-verification organization and proposed cooperation among European institutions combating disinformation. The message contained a legitimate-looking link to a European Union events calendar, but the malicious code was embedded directly in the email itself.

CISA urged organizations to update all Zimbra mail software, monitor their email systems for suspicious activity and review the technical indicators included in the advisory. Organizations that find evidence of a compromise should follow the agencies’ remediation guidance rather than relying solely on installing the available patch.

“CISA continues to see sophisticated and less sophisticated nation-state cyber groups deploy increasingly novel exploits into a highly successful capability to disrupt critical infrastructure or conduct espionage,” said Chris Butera, CISA’s acting executive assistant director for cybersecurity.

The advisory was also backed by defense, cybersecurity and intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen European countries.

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Transportation looks to AI to accelerate its modernization initiatives

Edward Graham — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The Department of Transportation is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence, according to a top agency official, with the emerging capabilities playing an increasingly important role in the agency’s ongoing modernization efforts.

Speaking at GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit on July 16, Transportation Deputy Secretary Steven Bradbury said internal adoption of the technologies has already helped to accelerate needed software upgrades, with growing workforce use of AI poised to further expand its impact on agency operations.

Transportation released its 1DOT IT strategy last September to help guide its digital infrastructure transformation, which includes a focus on modernizing and replacing its outdated systems.

Bradbury said uses of the emerging capabilities have already helped Transportation speed up its software production timelines from 18 months down to 18 weeks, noting that “when we have a need for new software applications, we can bring AI to bear to help.”

Agencywide experimentation with AI tools has also highlighted a broader range of potential benefits from the technologies, Bradbury said.

He cited internal figures that found that “80% of DOT people are now looking at the uses of AI,” and said current adoption of the capabilities highlights how the technologies can provide further benefits to the American people.

“We're using it in making our rulemaking faster, more effective,” Bradbury said. “We get tens of thousands of comments on the complicated rules that we issue. We need to be able to digest those quickly, understand them [and] respond to them. AI can obviously help with that. Similarly, reviewing hundreds and hundreds of grant applications to make the right decisions about which projects to support through our grantmaking — AI is going to be instrumental in helping us do that as well.”

Beyond internal uses of AI, the capabilities are also set to play a key role in the Trump administration’s broader push to upgrade the nation’s outdated air traffic control system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the modernization effort in May 2025, saying at the time that the multi-billion dollar effort would include a modernized flight management system and updated ground radar systems at all U.S. airports.

Although Congress approved $12.5 billion for the modernization effort as part of the Big, Beautiful Bill, Bradbury said “we do need more” to finish the effort by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.

He noted that the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing the initiative, is already in the process of setting up a Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — or SMART — system “to use all of the information available, [including] weather, what's going on at the ground [and] where airplanes are being prepared for takeoff across the whole system to know in advance what the conflict points are.”

The FAA announced last month that it awarded Air Space Intelligence a 12-year, $875 million contract for new software and artificial intelligence capabilities, including for the SMART system.

Bradbury said that “AI is going to be essential to make this happen.”

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GSA wants other agencies to borrow what's working on tech

Frank Konkel — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:59:52 -0400

As the General Services Administration closes in on achieving its 2026 moonshot goal to save and automate 1 million hours of work for its employees, the agency will showcase and share those internal efforts — and a host of other proven tech efforts — with a governmentwide audience on July 30.

Registration for the Emerging Technology Showcase is open to all federal employees, and though the event will be held in person at the Interior Department’s Yates Auditorium, it will be livestreamed for a virtual audience likely in the tens of thousands.

“The administration has looked at GSA to lead” on approaches that make government more efficient, effective and responsive, GSA Deputy Administrator Mike Lynch said Thursday at the Government Efficiency Summit.

GSA hosted an internal tech demo day in late spring, featuring several agency employees — including Lynch and Chief Information Officer Dave Shive — who showcased several ways technology was being used across the agency to save time, improve efficiencies, deliver better outcomes and services or make employees’ jobs easier. Several thousand employees tuned in, and Lynch said its in the agency’s DNA to share what’s working.

“That's really a core to GSA's mission and a convening function that we've heard: a lot of demand and interest throughout government to expand what we were doing internally and offer it up more broadly,” he added.

One certain talking point for the event will be a step-by-step guide GSA released in June to cut, streamline and automate work called the Elimination, Optimization and Automation playbook. The playbook builds on lessons learned from federal pilots, mature automation programs and GSA’s own extensive internal enterprise efforts to improve operations. One such effort, the agency’s push to save and eliminate 1 million hours of employee work within the calendar year, is pacing far ahead of schedule.

“We're at roughly 850,000 [hours identified], which has been amazing, and we've been blown away with kind of the adoption that's taken place, largely driven by technology,” Lynch said Thursday. “We put that in [the] playbook, and we're now showcasing that as part of the forum on the 30th that should be available to all of government to see where to use that within your own workflows.”

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VA’s push to shorten benefits forms needs more public input

Edward Graham — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:34:28 -0400

The Department of Veterans Affairs is pushing for more public feedback on its proposals to reduce the amount of paperwork that veterans and their survivors must complete to apply for benefits.

VA published two recommendations last month proposing to shorten the length of the forms needed to apply for disability compensation benefits and for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, survivor’s pension and accrued benefits. The department highlighted these ongoing efforts on Wednesday and noted it is accepting additional public input on its recommendations.

VA’s proposal to reduce the amount of paperwork needed to complete the disability compensation benefits form was published in the Federal Register on June 23, with the department saying its Veterans Benefits Administration component is looking to reduce the complexity of the paperwork by the end of calendar year 2026. The outlined recommendation would shorten the form from 15 pages to five pages and decrease the average amount of time needed to fill out the paperwork from 25 minutes to 15 minutes.

“The primary objectives are to enhance the experience for Veterans, lessen the administrative burden and time required to submit a claim for benefits, and accommodate preferences for submitting forms either through VA.gov or via paper, while preserving accessibility,” according to the notice.

The proposal to shorten the DIC application was similarly published in the Federal Register on June 25 and also notes VBA’s desire to reduce the complexity of the form’s paperwork by the end of this year. The notice said the department is looking to shorten the application from 20 pages to seven pages and reduce the average response time from 40 minutes to 25 minutes.

VA said in both proposals that it is looking for comments on how to revise its information gathering process, such as “ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or the use of other forms of information technology.”

Public input on the recommendations, however, has been relatively muted thus far. As of this article’s publication, the two proposals had a combined nine comments — two for the disability compensation benefits recommendation and seven for the proposed DIC application changes. Feedback on both proposals will be accepted through Aug. 24.

VA has already been working over the past several years to shorten or digitize many of the forms that veterans and their beneficiaries must complete to apply for and receive services. These efforts have included a push to create standardized claim and appeal forms, as well as an effort to pre-fill some forms with information from verified VA.gov profiles.

“No Veteran or surviving family member should face unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles when seeking the benefits they’ve earned,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “These proposals reflect our commitment to putting Veterans and their families first — reducing paperwork, saving time, and making the application process as straightforward as possible.”

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Space Development Agency resumes launches with its future in doubt

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:20:06 -0400

After a nine-month pause, the Space Development Agency is finally scheduled to launch its next batch of satellites for its sprawling military-communication constellation—even as draft legislation weighs dissolving the agency.

SDA is scheduled to launch its next 21 Tranche 1 satellites on Thursday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Their payloads will be part of the data-transport layer of the agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a network of hundreds of low-earth-orbit satellites to be used for space-based military communications and threat detection. After the first two batches of those satellites were sent into orbit this past fall, SDA paused further launches as officials worked through technical problems.

“We did see software and hardware issues on the ones on orbit right now,” Gurpartap Sandhoo, the Space Development Agency’s director, told reporters on Wednesday. “That's why we kind of delayed and took a pause to make sure we fix at least the known issues. We expect this launch to be a lot smoother than the last one.”

After Thursday’s launch, Sandhoo said, the agency will have roughly half of the transport layer’s satellites on orbit. Satellites for the next layer, known as Tranche 2, are anticipated to start going up in fiscal year 2027.

Despite the delays, Sandhoo said SDA is “in a better place in terms of schedule.”

Yet his agency might not survive long as an independent entity. A draft version of the National Defense Authorization Act aims to fold the agency and authorities into the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive.

Sandhoo said SDA employees may have “some concerns” with the draft language. But workers are “here for the mission” and to get the architecture done, he said.

Government watchdogs have repeatedly questioned the technology behind the satellite constellation.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about its laser-communications technology, saying that it “hasn't fully demonstrated that it works in space.” The agency pushed back on the report and said it had achieved “baseline objectives” with tests.

In January, GAO reported that SDA’s program “is at risk of being unable to deliver capability as quickly as planned” and said the agency “should be more realistic and transparent on the technology it can deliver.

Sandhoo pushed back on those findings as well, telling reporters that the agency needs to take risks to bring crucial space-based technologies to the troops.

“I would want you to go back and look at the Apollo program. I mean, you did not wait until Apollo 8 landed before you start building Apollo 9, right? You just had to do it,” Sandhoo said. “That's the kind of mindset we're taking. That's what I think the nation needs right now.”

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AI won’t replace human claims processors, VA officials say, as Democrats worry over staffing levels

Christian Robles — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:57:18 -0400

Artificial intelligence tools the Department of Veterans Affairs is using to speed up disability claims processing will not replace human reviewers, agency officials told lawmakers Monday, but Democrats contend claims processing also need sufficient staffing levels, not just new technology.

“Every disability claim is decided by a trained VA employee, not by AI or automation. These tools support human decision making; they do not replace it,” Robert Orifici, acting deputy chief information officer at VA’s Office of Information and Technology, said during a House Veterans’ Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee hearing.

“What we really strive to do is look at those really high volume, highly administrative tasks, focus our resources and [apply] really basic automation on those capabilities, so that we are really supporting and augmenting the productivity of our employees,” added Derek Herbert, acting chief production officer at VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration.

Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., who chairs the subcommittee, expressed support for VA’s focus on maintaining human disability claim reviewers, saying Congress “will make sure that there are strong guardrails where no veteran claim is fully decided by AI or automation.”

The comments come as VA is actively using AI to speed up disability claims processing by prepopulating toxic exposure memos veterans must file, streamlining information gathering and facilitating other procedures. VA is also planning to acquire or develop additional AI and automated tools for disability claims, Nextgov/FCW reported in March.

But Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., the panel's ranking member, argued that the new technologies may actually hinder VA reviewers’ ability to quickly process claims.

“I hear from employees that the so-called fixes that VA has pushed, like automation and pilots of artificial intelligence tools, often produce incorrect information, compounding issues and slowing production,” Budzinski said.

The congresswoman said new technology cannot solve declines in VA staffing, adding that she is alarmed that VA has lost 1,100 claims examiners this fiscal year, along with 2,700 examiners and 120 IT specialists since January 2025.

Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., said she shared Budzinski’s concerns that a lack of adequate VA staffing is leading to less accurate reviews of claims.

Goodlander pressed Hebert to reveal how many claims examiners the VA has on staff and confirm the total has declined since January 2025. Hebert did not have specific numbers but said he would get those to the lawmakers while noting that VA is currently hiring. VA had several open claims examiners positions on usajobs.gov as of Tuesday morning.

Sterling Thomas, the Government Accountability Office’s chief scientist, similarly told lawmakers that federal agencies need a workforce with the right skills to harness new technologies. He argued that solutions such as a federal digital services academy could help VA and other agencies field the talent they need.

Thomas also recommended that VA turn to GAO’s AI framework of key practices as it continues to roll out new AI and automated technologies for claims processing. The framework says federal agencies should document the data used to build AI models, articulate system-level technical specifications, continuously monitor AI performance, assess that performance and take other measures to ensure technology is responsibly deployed.

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DHS network intrusion was twice ruled a false positive before breach confirmed

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:15:50 -0400

Department of Homeland Security personnel twice dismissed signs of cyber intruders inside the agency’s Homeland Security Information Network as harmless activity, allowing hackers to remain undetected inside for weeks and eventually steal credential files, according to an internal incident readout viewed by Nextgov/FCW.

HSIN was breached about two months ago, Nextgov/FCW first reported in late June. The network houses sensitive, unclassified data that’s shared between federal, state, local, industry and overseas partner organizations.

Department investigators have still not determined the affiliation of the hackers, according to two people with knowledge of an ongoing probe into the incident. DHS may send staff to brief Congress on the hack in a classified setting in the coming weeks, added the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to communicate the department’s thinking.

Between May 15 and May 24, the infiltration was detected by analysts inside FEMA, where they observed the hackers had altered files on testing and live servers, used a legitimate web-server program to run malicious code and deleted activity logs that could have exposed their movements, according to the readout. The activity was ruled a false positive.

Between May 25 and June 3, the hackers used similar methods aiming to leave scant trace of their activity, setting off more alerts that were again dismissed as benign. On June 4, they installed hidden backdoors and stole credential data — typically employed to verify users’ identities and grant access to accounts or systems — where personnel then declared a breach was active.

It’s not clear why the intrusion was deemed benign two times over such a wide timeframe, but the incident highlights how a mistaken assessment can give hackers significantly more time to deepen their access into a target’s environment. The hack involved techniques meant to mask activity as normal, which, generally speaking, can make it very difficult for analysts to determine what is legitimate or not, one of the people said.

It’s also unclear what materials, if any, were copied from HSIN systems, though the fact that hackers targeted credential files indicates they sought out access to accounts or systems beyond what they could initially reach.

"The Department of Homeland Security is aware of a recent cyber incident involving a specific, unclassified legacy information sharing environment," a DHS spokesperson wrote in the same statement it provided earlier this month that confirmed the hack. "We immediately took action to isolate the affected systems, mitigate the vulnerability, and launch a comprehensive forensic investigation. There is no indication that classified networks were impacted, and the system remains operational for our partners. As this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further operational details at this time."

Approved users lean on the network to securely access data, exchange requests with partner agencies, coordinate safety and security for planned events, respond to incidents and share information needed to protect their communities, per its website.

HSIN has been used to support ongoing World Cup games and recent America250 events, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said in a statement after the breach was reported.

“The information in HSIN, while not classified, is highly sensitive, and its exposure risks national security,” he said at the time.

As the United States hosts World Cup matches nationwide, the hack could raise questions about whether the intruders gained access to security plans, interagency communications or emergency response plans for one of the world’s most visible sporting events. It’s also possible that World Cup data was not a target.

Nation-state and criminal hackers routinely target U.S. systems to gather intelligence, steal sensitive information and maintain access to government networks. In February, a suspected China-linked breach of an FBI surveillance system likely exposed the phone numbers of people the bureau was monitoring. Last fall, a widespread breach at FEMA let hackers make off with employee data from both the disaster management office and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from DHS.

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Transportation loses its top tech official amid wave of CIO departures

Alexandra Kelley — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The chief digital and information officer of the Department of Transportation is resigning from his position effective Sept. 4, according to an email obtained by Nextgov/FCW.

Pavan Pidugu, who has been the CDIO at the agency since February 2025, sent the email Thursday announcing his departure to his staff and expressing gratitude for his colleagues and their work. He wrote that serving alongside “this incredible team for the past many years has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.”

“When we set out on this journey together, we shared a bold vision to fundamentally transform how technology serves the Department and the American public. Thanks to your hard work, dedication, and true builder mentality, we didn't just meet those expectations—we exceeded them,” the email continued.

Pidugu told Nextgov/FCW in August 2025 that he wanted to turn the Transportation IT shop into a place “where we build technology,” modernizing the agency amid the federal operations overhaul executed by the Department of Government Efficiency during the start of the second Trump administration. Pidugu led the crafting of the department’s “1DOT IT strategy,” which guided Transportation’s modernization agenda.

He said in the Thursday email that, during his tenure, his office achieved “unprecedented milestones” in their tech policy efforts, including conducting a mass, agency-wide transition to Gmail software to achieve about 70% cost savings, creating the internal T-Cloud environment and pursuing long-term plans to migrate legacy IT infrastructure.

The contract between Transportation and Google through software reseller Carahsoft is particularly important, with a value ceiling of $89 million to bring the Google Workspace suite to the agency and build a “modern collaboration environment,” as Pidugu called it in his Thursday email. The department was able to leverage the software at discounted rates negotiated through the General Services Administration’s OneGov program.

“These accomplishments are a direct testament to your talent and your willingness to embrace a product-centric culture,” Pidugu wrote. “By working together, we have broken down historic silos to operate as a truly unified enterprise.”

In his email, Pidugu did not state his reason for resigning or who will take up his position after he leaves.

Over the course of the week, reports of at least three federal CIOs planning to depart their posts in the government have emerged. Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia is set to leave his role by the end of August, and the Department of the Interior CIO Paul “Macca” McInerny also stepped down from his position last week. Department of Housing and Urban Development CIO Eric Sidle has been tapped to take over leading the Interior tech shop.

Pidugu received a Federal 100 award this year for his work at the Transportation Department in 2025.

GovExec Editor-in-Chief Frank Konkel contributed to this report.

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HUD's tech chief appears headed for Interior

Edward Graham and David DiMolfetta — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:02:15 -0400

Department of Housing and Urban Development Chief Information Officer and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Eric Sidle is expected to soon take up the Department of Interior’s top tech post after the latter agency’s CIO departed, according to two people familiar with the matter.

He is finalizing the paperwork process and could be onboarded in the next one to two weeks, said both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the selection has not been made public.

Sidle joined HUD in May 2025 after serving in the private sector for a number of years in a variety of tech-specific roles. He previously worked for two years at tech consulting firm Fabrum Advisors as a technology advisor, operating partner and coach.

Prior to that position, Sidle oversaw autonomous driving hardware at NIO, served as chief technology officer at ChargePoint and worked as an engineering manager for special projects at Apple.

Interior’s prior CIO Paul “Macca” McInerny — a former SpaceX engineer that aligned himself with the Department of Government Efficiency’s mission — left the department last week after just over a year in the role, with a top strategy official at the agency, Matt Luby, tapped as interim CIO, Nextgov/FCW reported Monday.

One suspected source of frustration under McInerny involved the department’s effort to consolidate and speed up permitting systems — including systems tied to Bureau of Land Management leasing and energy development — that would likely demand significant overhauls to the agency’s IT stack.

HUD and Interior spokespeople did not return multiple requests for comment.

Sidle has publicly discussed his push to bolster anti-fraud initiatives while at HUD, an effort that aligns with the Trump administration’s broader “war on fraud.”

Speaking at the Government Service Delivery conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Sidle said HUD’s outdated technologies and disparate databases made it difficult to identify companies gaming the agency’s programs, noting that the median age of its systems was 20 years.

“Across different agencies, we’re now talking about how we’re going to be dealing with data sharing, Delta Sharing and all this other stuff,” he said, adding that “even before AI, just the basics of data analytics wasn’t being done — let alone now you have AI, which is going to take off and be able to protect this.”

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GSA taps White House design team to revamp Login.gov

Frank Konkel — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:45:04 -0400

Login.gov, the government’s identity-proofing platform housed within the General Services Administration, is collaborating with the National Design Studio to enhance the user experience of millions of Americans who regularly use the shared service.

The collaboration aims to “make it easier for people to access government services, while operating with privacy, transparency, and security at the core of everything we do,” according to an internal email sent to staff Tuesday by Greg Hogan, acting assistant commissioner of Login.gov, and obtained by Nextgov/FCW.

Currently, more than 100 million Americans have accounts through Login.gov to access a variety of government services like Social Security accounts, unemployment insurance, passport services and more across 50 states and agencies.

The National Design Studio was stood up via an August 2025 executive order to improve how Americans experience and interact with government agencies online and in-person. Housed within the Executive Office of the President and headed by Joe Gebbia, the National Design Studio has collaborated with several agencies across government, including on a major effort with the Office of Personnel Management to make federal retirement applications fully electronic.

Per Hogan’s email, “ND Studio has drafted a proposed set of changes that will help modernize and streamline the sign up, sign in, and identity proofing process.” Hogan makes clear that while National Design Studio is providing a service to Login.gov, it “does not oversee or operate” the service, nor is it “building a replacement Login.gov website.”

The National Design Studio instead built a separate “experimental version” of the site to test different design concepts and improvements that it pitched to leadership.

“The ND Studio will have resources available to support us in real-time thinking through these immediate changes and identifying areas where their expertise would be beneficial for the long term,” Hogan said in the email. “I believe our combined skills can greatly benefit the American public.”

“Our team at GSA remains responsible for every change made to the service. Any proposal must go through our normal reviews for engineering, security, accessibility, privacy, compliance, performance, and product before it gets shipped to users. We’ll implement only changes that improve the user experience and meet our standards,” he added.

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House Homeland committee seeks briefing on DHS network hack

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:07:31 -0400

House Homeland Security Committee staff are requesting a briefing from the Department of Homeland Security on the breach of the agency’s Homeland Security Information Network, according to a committee aide with knowledge of the matter.

Staffers are hoping to be briefed on the intrusion — first reported by Nextgov/FCW last week — by Friday, said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive.

Hackers are believed to have penetrated HSIN sometime between late May and early June, though their affiliation and whether any contents were pilfered from the platform is unclear, a person familiar with the matter previously said.

Approved users lean on the network to securely access data, exchange requests with partner agencies, manage operations, coordinate safety and security for planned events, respond to incidents and share mission-critical information needed to protect their communities, according to its website. HSIN carries unclassified but sensitive information shared among federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, international and private-sector partners.

The intrusion comes as the U.S. oversees security for World Cup games across the country, placing added scrutiny on the systems federal, state and local officials use to coordinate major events. A breach of the platform may raise concerns about whether hackers gained insight into security planning, interagency coordination or response procedures surrounding one of the most visible international events hosted predominately in the United States.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said last week that the network is being used to support the World Cup and America250 events. He added that it played a key role for emergency responders during last year’s mid-air collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter outside Washington, D.C.

“The information in HSIN, while not classified, is highly sensitive, and its exposure risks national security,” Warner said. “DHS and DOJ must thoroughly investigate who breached HSIN, what the attackers accessed, and ensure all DHS partners are provided with timely information and the tools necessary to mitigate any associated risks from the breach.”

When asked by Nextgov/FCW about the committee briefing request, a department spokesperson sent the same statement it provided last week that confirmed the hack.

The statement said staff “immediately took action to isolate the affected systems, mitigate the vulnerability, and launch a comprehensive forensic investigation,” and added that an investigation is ongoing and more details can’t be provided.

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Greg Barbaccia to leave federal CIO role at end of August

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:00:00 -0400

Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia is leaving government service, capping off an 18-month tenure as the government’s top IT lead where he sought to overhaul how the U.S. agencies acquire and interact with tech services.

Barbaccia will depart Aug. 31, according to a White House official with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity to communicate the departure. It’s not clear where Barbaccia is headed next.

The Office of Management and Budget confirmed his departure date.

“Greg has done an excellent job as Federal CIO and Chief AI Officer,” a spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW. “He will certainly be missed when his time here comes to an end.”

The move was first reported by FedScoop.

“Greg Barbaccia has been an incredible partner at GSA. He has fundamentally reshaped our work on the federal government’s technology and the products GSA delivers across the federal workforce on behalf of the American taxpayer,” GSA Administrator Edward Forst said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW. “I’m deeply grateful for his extraordinary service to President Trump and the American people.”

Barbaccia joined OMB in January 2025 after a decade at Palantir and later stints at blockchain intelligence firm Elementus and Theorem, a machine-learning-enabled asset manager. A former Army intelligence sergeant and intelligence community analyst, Barbaccia had not worked in government since 2009 and had not previously served as an agency CIO.

Barbaccia was charged as federal CIO with overseeing governmentwide IT policy, helping shape the federal technology budget and setting the direction for agency modernization efforts. He also served as the federal chief AI officer and became the government’s service delivery lead under the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act.

During his tenure, he pushed agencies to rethink how they buy and manage technology, arguing that the government should default more often to buying commercial tools rather than building systems in-house. He also sought tougher enforcement of FITARA, the 2014 law giving agency CIOs authority over technology investments, and explored ways for OMB to more closely track major IT decisions across agencies.

Barbaccia also made culture a central theme of his tenure, saying his role had become less about “deep diving” into technical architecture and more about changing how the government thinks about technology, compliance and modernization. He pushed the federal CIO office to gather more feedback from agency technology leaders and sent staff into the field for in-person meetings with agencies.

“I came into the job thinking this would be much more of a technical undertaking about deep diving into technical systems and technical architecture,” he told Nextgov/FCW in February. “I’m understanding changing the culture and the way we think about tech and the government is a way more effective means of making change, so that's what I’m focused on — primarily changes across culture, tech and then the compliance regime.”

His departure comes after a turbulent period for the federal technology workforce, including Department of Government Efficiency’s push to downsize government as a whole, broad personnel losses across government — including portions of the federal tech workforce — and a reshuffling of many agency CIO roles. Barbaccia has acknowledged those disruptions but argued that artificial intelligence and a new early-career U.S. Tech Force program could help the government rebuild technical capacity.

Barbaccia also championed a “digital front door” for government services, questioning why taxpayers must repeatedly provide the same information to different agencies. That vision, he said, would require more responsible data sharing and a willingness to make difficult decisions around identity proofing, including the future of Login.gov and the government’s use of commercial identity tools.

During his tenure, the federal government began to confront a new class of advanced AI models that officials and researchers say will forever overhaul how organizations manage defensive and offensive cyber strategies. The models’ advent has raised ongoing questions for agency technology leaders about model-sharing and coordination amid a recent export control debacle that impacted parts of the government.

Nextgov/FCW Managing Editor Edward Graham contributed to this report.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from GSA Administrator Edward Forst.

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Trump says Pulte can declassify ‘whatever’ he wants, sparking fears of exposing intelligence secrets

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that acting spy chief Bill Pulte can declassify “whatever” records he wants and can declassify “almost everything,” a sweeping green light that has alarmed former intelligence officials, who warn that careless releases could expose sensitive intelligence capabilities and sidestep standard review processes with other spy agencies.

Trump said Wednesday that acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte would only serve in the job for “a month or two months or something,” but has his permission in the interim to release classified records.

“Bill is there just for a fairly short period of time,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want.”

Under U.S. law, records declassification is usually handled through a structured review process meant to identify national security risks before materials are released. Trump’s comments appear to give Pulte political backing to move aggressively, but they don’t necessarily address how agencies with involvement in any records would be consulted first.

“My guess is that NSA and CIA are losing their minds at the idea of Pulte declassifying a lot of stuff,” said a former official, who, like others for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid and for fear of retribution.

“If Pulte actually runs the traps and considers damage and balances, he won’t declassify much. If he doesn’t care about blowing up cyber exploits, putting foreign relationships at risk, or getting people killed, he could declassify a lot,” the former official added.

Intelligence records are typically reviewed by the agency that produced them before release, particularly if disclosure could expose that agency’s operations, but that consultation might be skipped entirely under Pulte, a second former official said.

An ODNI spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump has placed Pulte at the center of a wider declassification push that began under former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who used her role atop ODNI to release records tied to Trump-era grievances over alleged weaponization inside the intelligence community. ODNI’s own public releases under Gabbard included documents the office claimed exposed efforts by intelligence officials to undermine Trump’s 2016 victory and material it said showed a conspiracy used during his 2019 impeachment proceedings.

The declassification push is part of a broader campaign to challenge an intelligence community the president has long accused of working against him. Since the 2016 Russia investigation, Trump and his allies have argued that intelligence and law enforcement shops have used their powers to damage his presidency.

“Trump’s statement alone saying that Pulte has this authority is damaging to national security because any person thinking about volunteering or working with the United States might think twice now, and is more likely to go to the Brits or another service,” a third former official said, adding that if Pulte moves to declassify intelligence involving other agencies, he would be in violation of the law.

The president “just signaled to any person providing intelligence to the United States that their intelligence can be released at Pulte’s whim, thus putting their entire security and safety in jeopardy,” the third former official added.

The White House has assembled a task force collecting thousands of pages of intelligence and law enforcement documents, mostly related to the 2020 election, with plans to declassify some of them in ways that could support Trump’s claims about election irregularities and fraud, NBC News reported Tuesday.

Trump’s declassification plans land against a long-running backdrop of concerns over his administration’s handling of sensitive intelligence. During his first term, officials said he shared highly classified information provided by the Israelis with Russian officials in the Oval Office. Separately, Russian and U.S. news reports later identified Oleg Smolenkov, a former Russian government official living near Washington, as a possible CIA source who had disappeared from Russia in 2017 after allegedly providing information on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in the Kremlin’s 2016 election interference efforts.

Trump was later indicted in June 2023 over classified records kept at Mar-a-Lago, including documents prosecutors said involved highly sensitive national defense information, though the case was dismissed and later dropped after he returned to office. Former President Joe Biden also faced a classified documents investigation, but a special counsel declined to charge him on grounds that there was not enough evidence to convict him of “willfully” retaining the sensitive materials.

Pulte’s short tenure has already produced early staffing changes at ODNI that have removed around 50 career and political staff from their roles in the office. The moves follow a broader downsizing campaign started under Gabbard.

The personnel churn included the sidelining of Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration. Pulte also brought in a new chief of staff, Christina Norton, who served as Pulte’s chief of staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and as the RNC’s election integrity director, helping oversee its 2024 poll-watching operation. Her move into ODNI has sharpened concerns that the office could be drawn further into Trump’s push to revisit election-related claims.

Trump’s comments come after he slowed a Senate push last month to quickly confirm Jay Clayton as permanent intelligence chief, allowing Pulte to take over the office on a temporary basis. Trump said Wednesday that Clayton would get his Senate hearing in two weeks.

Clayton’s nomination has drawn a generally positive response from senators. But Democrats have reacted furiously to Pulte’s elevation, and even some Republicans have expressed concern about installing someone with no prior intelligence community experience as acting DNI. The fight has already affected Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a key spying authority that had appeared headed for reauthorization in early June before Democrats balked in protest of moving forward with Pulte at the head of ODNI.

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Hackers breached DHS information-sharing network, people familiar say

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400

A key Department of Homeland Security information-sharing database was accessed by an unknown threat actor in recent weeks, potentially exposing sensitive data exchanged between federal, state, local and industry partners, according to two people familiar with the matter.

DHS investigators are probing the intrusion of the Homeland Security Information Network, said both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the incident is sensitive. The hackers’ affiliation and whether any documentation was pilfered from the system are both unclear.

The department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has conducted a damage assessment of the intrusion, which is believed to have occurred sometime between late May and early June, said one of the people. The hackers targeted HSIN servers and a SharePoint system used for collaboration efforts, the person added.

The intrusion comes as the U.S. is overseeing security for World Cup games across the country, placing added scrutiny on the systems federal, state and local officials use to coordinate major events. A breach of the platform could raise concerns about whether hackers gained insight into security planning, interagency coordination or response procedures surrounding one of the most visible international events hosted predominately in the United States.

The platform supports real-time communication, document sharing, alerts, web conferencing and incident management. It’s also used to exchange information about persons of interest and potential threats to help agencies maintain situational awareness during emergencies and events.

“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of a recent cyber incident involving a specific, unclassified legacy information sharing environment. We immediately took action to isolate the affected systems, mitigate the vulnerability, and launch a comprehensive forensic investigation,” a department spokesperson said after this story published. “There is no indication that classified networks were impacted, and the system remains operational for our partners. As this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further operational details at this time."

The development would not be the first time HSIN has faced security problems. In 2023, an access misconfiguration linked to a contractor’s coding error caused restricted HSIN data to be exposed to unapproved users inside the platform, according to a memo obtained by Nextgov/FCW.

The error let information intended for a limited set of authorized users be made available more broadly across HSIN, including sensitive U.S. person data and other personally identifying information. The full consequences of that misconfiguration are still unclear, according to a third person. Wired previously reported that incident.

Nation-state groups and criminal hackers routinely target U.S. systems to collect intelligence, steal sensitive information, disrupt operations or gain footholds inside government networks. In February, a suspected China-linked breach of an FBI surveillance system likely revealed phone numbers of targets being monitored by the bureau, Nextgov/FCW previously reported.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comment from DHS.

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CIA will take ‘smart risks’ and ‘course correct’ as it adopts AI, director says

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The Central Intelligence Agency is moving aggressively to adopt advanced artificial intelligence tools, with Director John Ratcliffe saying Tuesday that the spy agency cannot afford to wait for a “risk-free approach” as emerging technologies reshape national security.

The CIA is “going to take smart risks, experiment and course-correct as we go” as it works to embed AI and other evolving technologies into its operations, Ratcliffe said at the AWS Summit held in Washington, D.C.

“We simply can't afford to wait for a risk-free approach when it comes to emerging technologies. It doesn't exist,” he said, noting that he can’t predict how far such technologies will go, but “what we’re not going to do, as we test the limits of what is possible at CIA, is to make perfect the enemy of good.”

The remarks underscore how aggressively the spy agency is trying to embed advanced artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies into its work, a notable push for an agency best known for human intelligence-gathering overseas. They also show that the agency is willing to accept some degree of risk as it adopts emerging technologies, betting that experimentation is preferable to moving too slowly in the face of foreign adversaries.

The CIA recruits and manages foreign assets, often undercover, to clandestinely collect intelligence on issues ranging from economics and terrorism to cyber threats. Over the last year, The Trump administration has sought to highlight the agency’s contributions to many of its national security achievements in Iran and Venezuela.

CIA officials have been increasingly public about the tech shifts the agency has undergone. Deputy Director Michael Ellis said earlier this year that the agency aims to integrate AI-powered “coworkers” into analysts’ workflows in the coming years, with the tools helping draft key judgments, edit for clarity and flag trends for human review.

The agency also recently announced a new acquisition framework to overhaul how it integrates technology into its missions. In his Tuesday speech, Ratcliffe said that, under new approaches, the agency completed some 400 acquisitions in about six months, a sharp reduction compared to previous acquisition deals that took around three years.

Recent research has argued that emerging tech may spur spy agencies to revert to older intelligence-collection methods, but Ratcliffe argued that more CIA officers “are going to have to become just as comfortable handling lines of code as they are with handling human assets and sources,” although “good intelligence is always going to require good judgment, and only people can and should decide which is the right way to go.”

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America at 250: What the Census reveals about our journey

John Breeden II — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday, a milestone that belongs to all 342 million of us. But one of the more interesting ways to think about that anniversary is through the federal institution that has spent almost the entire life of the republic trying to count, describe and understand who “we” actually are. The Census Bureau’s new Freedom 250 Project frames the semi-quincentennial as a chance to look back at 250 years of “measuring America’s journey,” which is a pretty good way to describe what the agency has been doing almost from the start.

The decennial census itself is nearly as old as the country. The first one was taken in 1790, only 14 years after the Declaration of Independence. It took 18 months to complete and counted 3,929,214 people, including 697,624 enslaved people, or 17.8% of the total population. It covered our 13 original states along with Kentucky, Maine, Vermont and the Southwest Territory, which later became known as Tennessee. That first count was not just a bureaucratic exercise. It was one of the earliest ways the new nation tried to understand its own size, shape and future.

That first census also reminds us how much the country has changed, and how much of today’s changes were already underway right from the start. For example, the Census Bureau’s America 250 story notes that people’s westward movement showed up early in the counts. By the time the 1890 census rolled around, officials who studied the totals concluded that the so-called “frontier line” no longer existed because people had already spread deeply into the American West. In other words, the census was not just recording static numbers on a page. It was documenting the physical movement of the country as Americans pushed outward, claimed more land and reshaped the map.

The scale of the nation’s growth is still striking. According to Census Bureau estimates for July 2025, about 342 million people now live in the United States, almost 123 times more than in 1780, the closest population benchmark to when independence was declared in 1776. That number alone says a lot. The United States did not simply get older over the past 250 years. It grew, spread and multiplied on a scale the founders could not have possibly predicted.

Just look at the number of people who lived in the original 13 colonies compared with today. Georgia had one of the biggest population swings, going from just 82,548 people in 1790 to 10.7 million today. Virginia had the largest population of the 13 colonies at 691,737, growing to 8.6 million as of the 2020 Census. Meanwhile, New York was a middle-of-the-road colony in terms of population with 340,120 residents in 1790. Today it’s the fourth most populous state in the country with 20.2 million residents.

And yet even with all of that growth, some things are oddly durable. One of the more humanizing details in the Census Bureau’s recent names data is that eight of the nation’s top 15 last names in 2020 were also among the most common in 1790. If your last name happens to be Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller, Davis or Wilson, then you are carrying a name stretching back to the earliest days of the republic. Despite a more than 84-fold increase in population since then, those names remained among the top 15 in the 2020 Census. Today they are joined by others at the top of the list including Garcia, Rodriguez, Lopez and Anderson.

That mix of change and continuity may be the most American part of the story. The census has recorded territorial expansion, urban growth, industrialization, migration and the long movement of population toward new regions and opportunities. At the same time, it has preserved quieter patterns that make the country feel connected to its own past. Names endure. Places rise and fall. New populations arrive, move and settle. And every 10 years, the census catches another snapshot of a nation that is never entirely still.

There is also something fitting about using the Census Bureau as a lens for the nation’s 250th anniversary because the agency’s work has always been about more than population alone. Its Freedom 250 materials emphasize both people and the economy, and that broader mission helps explain why census data has been so useful for understanding the nation over time. It does not just tell us how many Americans there are. It helps tell us where they are, how the country has expanded and how one generation’s America gradually turned into another’s.

That is why the Census Bureau feels like such an appropriate federal companion to the nation’s 250th birthday. For almost 236 years, census-taking has helped document how the United States kept becoming itself. It has counted the country’s growth, tracked its movement and quietly preserved the evidence of how far America has traveled. And as the nation gets ready to celebrate a quarter millennium of independence, that may be one of the clearest ways to see both where our country began and how much of our journey is still unfolding.

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys

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Pentagon launches ‘War Force’ initiative to onboard tech talent

Edward Graham — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:36:50 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management and the Pentagon jointly announced the launch of a new initiative on Tuesday to bring top software engineering talent into the Department of Defense, part of a broader governmentwide push to hire more skilled technologists.

The recruitment effort, called War Force, operates under OPM’s larger Tech Force program. That initiative launched in December 2025 to onboard tech and cybersecurity professionals across federal agencies, although it notably followed Trump administration moves to let go of thousands of tech-focused workers and shutter several innovation-focused units.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement that War Force “builds on the momentum of Tech Force by connecting outstanding engineers with opportunities to solve complex challenges alongside the War Department.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last September that authorized DOD to use the “secondary title” of War Department — framing that is also reflected in the initiative's name.

OPM said the War Force recruitment effort “will launch with a targeted hiring campaign,” with a focus on bringing in applicants who have experience “deploying and integrating advanced technologies — including frontier AI, machine learning, automation, and data systems — and designing, building, and maintaining reliable software solutions that directly support operational needs on behalf of the American warfighter.” Job applications will be accepted through July 10.

Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael said in a statement that the War Force will help with “executing the key tenets of the War Department’s AI Acceleration Strategy.” That guidance was released in January and outlines the department’s plans for rapidly integrating AI capabilities into its operations.

The War Force recruitment effort also comes after DOD announced in April that it was launching a cyber apprenticeship program this summer to bring more skilled personnel into the agency.

During public remarks at the SAP NOW summit in Washington, D.C., last week, Pentagon Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies said the apprenticeship program “has already generated more than 70,000 inquiries,” despite the effort not officially launching until July.

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Secret Service phone security lapses put US officials at risk, watchdog says

David DiMolfetta — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:18:00 -0400

The Secret Service failed to effectively secure and manage mobile devices used for official business, including during protective operations, creating risks that adversaries could intercept sensitive communications and use them to target U.S. leaders and other protectees, according to a watchdog report issued Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general determined Secret Service employees routinely relied on personal phones for official work, including during domestic and overseas protective assignments, because government-issued devices lacked key tools needed to communicate with law enforcement, foreign partners and other officials.

Those personal devices were not managed or secured by the government, creating vulnerabilities that could expose operational details, employee information, contacts, location data, photos and other sensitive material, the report said.

Adversaries “could have intercepted and exploited Secret Service information, placing at risk our Nation’s leaders, other protectees, and employees — especially when unsecured devices were used overseas,” the inspector general wrote.

The audit grew out of broader reviews of the Secret Service following the July 13, 2024 attempted assassination of then-former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa. During those reviews, the watchdog said it learned that Secret Service personnel frequently used personal cellphones for official business, raising security and federal records concerns.

One episode described in the report connects the issue directly to the Butler security breakdown. Shortly before the attempted assassination, a Secret Service employee used a personal device to receive a picture message from local law enforcement of the would-be assassin because of reliability concerns with the employee’s government-issued phone. The employee told investigators that prior issues had prevented them from sending text messages with images using government equipment.

The watchdog also found that, after the attack, another employee had to take extra steps to email a photo of the would-be assassin to colleagues because a known issue prevented them from simply forwarding the image by text on a government-issued device.

The report points much of the blame at the Secret Service’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, which is responsible for setting mobile device security standards, managing government-issued devices and ensuring compliance with agency policies.

Secret Service employees told investigators that government-issued devices often lacked commercial messaging apps commonly used by foreign police, military officials, embassy drivers, State Department personnel and other partners overseas. Some also said they needed personal devices to access websites blocked on government phones, including sites used to research restaurants where a protectee was scheduled to dine.

Employees also cited reliability problems. According to the report, government-issued devices frequently disconnected from the Secret Service virtual private network, and about 12% of wireless help desk tickets involving mobile devices were related to VPN issues.

The watchdog found that the use of personal devices had become routine and expected during foreign assignments. Of 24 employees and supervisors interviewed about international travel reimbursement records, 23 said they relied on personal devices, with most saying they needed them during nearly every foreign assignment.

The inspector general also reviewed call and text records and found more than 15,000 instances in which employees sent or received calls from colleagues’ personal phones while working protective events. It found about 24,000 text messages between personal devices and government-issued phones, though its analysis did not include communications made solely between personal devices or through messaging apps.

The report also found that Secret Service mobile devices used overseas lacked required mobile threat defense software designed to provide real-time protection from malware, cyberattacks and other threats. The Secret Service did not begin installing that software on any government-issued mobile devices until August 2025, despite DHS policy requiring it for devices used outside the United States.

The watchdog also found that the Secret Service did not consistently wipe data from government phones after employees returned from international missions, even though agency policy required employees to wipe devices within 24 hours of returning to the United States. One employee told investigators their phone had never been wiped over the course of eight years and 20 international trips, including travel to high-risk countries. Another employee reported 15 trips over eight years and estimated their phone had been wiped only four times.

The Secret Service concurred with all five watchdog recommendations, including recommendations to improve its process for identifying mobile device needs, strengthen cybersecurity training, communicate that personal devices are not allowed for official business and update app vulnerability testing policies.

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Artificial intelligence is cutting months off nuclear licensing review times, official says

Edward Graham — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Artificial intelligence has already helped the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shave years off its typical licensing review process, an agency official said on Thursday. Now, the NRC is looking at how it can safely adopt other emerging capabilities to further speed up its review processes.

Speaking at the ATARC AI for impact summit in Virginia, NRC Chief Data Officer and Deputy Chief AI Officer Basia Sall said uses of AI have built upon recent regulatory changes and federal guidance to turbocharge the once drawn-out procedure for granting licenses for nuclear facilities.

“I’m happy to report we've already reduced the amount of time it takes for licensing,” Sall said. “For example, one type of licensing would take four years. We said we're going to get it down to 18 months. We just finished that first round of that licensing in nine months.”

Not all of this is strictly due to AI. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May 2025 to reform the NRC, which included setting an 18-month deadline on licensing reviews. But AI has helped the agency further shorten those licensing timelines, and Sall said internal personnel believe they can use the technologies to make the process even more efficient.

“I think some of our AI gurus at our agency were like, ‘Oh, yeah, we can do it better,’” she said.

NRC is also using AI to help with drafting documents “to make sure we look at the precedent” of previous decisions, Sall added.

Engaging with industry partners who are developing their own AI tools has also helped NRC conduct faster regulatory reviews. Sall said the agency has allowed some of these actors “to take our NRC public data and curate those data sets” for their own relevant applications.

“What that means is we receive a much better application than we have in the past,” she said. “We don't have as many questions. It's clear once we get it into our hands, we start our process, we accept it and then we start to do our review process.”

Using GSA’s AI offerings

NRC has also been leveraging some of the software and products made available through the General Services Administration’s OneGov initiative, which launched in April 2025 and provides agencies with significant discounts on select private sector technologies by treating the entire government as one customer. More than 20 companies have reached deals so far with GSA to offer their services at discounted rates.

Through OneGov’s offerings, Sall said NRC has already been testing AI tools like Anthropic’s Claude, Azure OpenAI and Google Gemini “for limited use cases with public data” and added that “we're finding some good success with that.”

GSA said in May that agencies have placed more than 120 orders for AI offerings through the strategy, which has made these technologies available for use to around 3.4 million federal employees.

NRC is also just beginning to take advantage of GSA’s USAi platform, which launched last August and serves as a testing ground for agencies to experiment with AI tools. A GSA official said earlier this month that “over 25 different agencies” were already using USAi, with an additional 16 others expected to begin using the platform before the end of 2026.

“We're looking at various tools about what makes sense,” Sall said, adding that “it’s going to be a menu” when it comes to testing out the various models on the platform.

Beyond experimenting with additional AI use cases, Sall said NRC has also been developing its own services. She cited the agency’s internally-built tool, known as SimplifAI, as something "which we're really proud of,” adding that it was built off Azure OpenAI and “we are finding that we're using that for our regulatory documents.” NRC recently moved to a 2.0 version after the initial model became deprecated.

NRC’s most recent AI use case inventory says the text retrieval and generation tool enhances the agency’s “efficiency and consistency in licensing, oversight, and other regulatory activities.”

Sall said some employees have also been training SimplifAI to help them write speeches.

“We're really proud that tool continues to develop,” she said, adding that “having those tools — a menu of tools — is going to be key, we think, moving forward.”

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FAA awards software and AI contract as part of air traffic control modernization

Edward Graham — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:26:47 -0400

The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Monday that it awarded Air Space Intelligence a 12-year, $875 million contract for new software and artificial intelligence capabilities, part of the agency’s ambitious effort to modernize the nation’s outdated air traffic control system.

The software company will provide “two complementary, cutting-edge technologies that will improve how flights are scheduled and managed throughout the National Airspace System,” according to the FAA.

These include Flow Management Data and Services, which the agency said will serve as “the new technological backbone” of a modernized Air Traffic Control System Command Center. ASI is also tasked with delivering a Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — or SMART — system.

In a fact sheet, the agency said “Using AI, SMART analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions, and operational constraints to predict traffic flows and identify potential conflicts before they occur.”

The FAA said it is hoping to begin initial deployments of SMART as soon as this fall. ASI said it expects both systems to be rolled out over the next 12 to 24 months.

“Every day, our air traffic professionals knowingly manage thousands of scheduling conflicts across the National Airspace System, which ultimately end up as delays for the traveling public,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement. “FMDS with the SMART capabilities will help us address that challenge by improving how we manage airspace before flights depart, reducing congestion, easing controller workload, and directly cutting down delays across the system.”

The contract is a part of the FAA and the Transportation Department’s broader push to upgrade the nation’s air traffic control system.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the launch of the ambitious effort in May 2025, saying at the time that it would entail some brick-and-mortar upgrades but that “everything else that controls the airspace is going to be brand new.” A key part of this effort, he said, will be replacing legacy systems and antiquated technologies with new capabilities, such as a modernized flight management system and updated ground radar systems at U.S. airports.

The initiative’s launch came on the heels of several high-profile air traffic control outages in the last few years, as well as the crash of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial airliner near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in January 2025 that killed all 67 people on both aircraft.

During an April event held just shy of the modernization effort’s one-year anniversary, Duffy said a few project workstreams were a “little behind,” but added that “for the most part, we’re on track to have this project completed before President [Donald] Trump leaves office.”

The FAA announced in December that it had selected Peraton as the project’s prime integrator to oversee the new Air Traffic Control System contract.

The One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed into law in July 2025, allocated $12.5 billion for the air traffic control modernization effort, although the agency in December called that amount a “down payment” and said at the time that it would need an additional $20 billion for the initiative.

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Jim Flyzik helped transform government IT from back-office function to mission enabler

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The federal government went through tremendous changes in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The Clinton Administration’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government to streamline processes and cut bureaucracy was one of them. Then there was the Y2K threat and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

These were large momentous events that became watershed moments and elevated the role of information technology from a back-office function to a mission-enabler.

Jim Flyzik, who died on June 4 at age 72, played a critical role in this transformation as a long-time IT executive at the Treasury Department and one of the government's first chief information officers. He helped stand up the infrastructure for the launch of Homeland Security Department.

Flyzik is being remembered by colleagues and friends for his many accolades and accomplishments and for his character and integrity.

“Jim Flyzik was the rare kind of colleague who quietly made everyone around him better,” said Ira Hobbs, a long-time government executive and former Treasury CIO. “He possessed a beautiful combination of selflessness and dedication.”

Charles Armstrong, another former government CIO, described how Flyzik built his career around hard work, determination, and relationship building.

“During the 1990s, Jim pushed for adoption of the internet in government. He helped leaders from the vice president to the rank-and-file program leader under the value of new technology in terms they could understand,” Armstrong said.

Flyzik’s career also intersected with the passage of the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, which created the CIO position across the agencies. That law also led to the formation of the Federal CIO Council and more governmentwide cooperation.

Flyzik was one of the early leaders of the council and was recognized as a proponent of finding common solutions across agencies.

His accolades included being selected for the Federal 100 and Eagle awards given by FCW, now part of NextGov and GovExec.

It is hard to imagine how disconnected government IT was then, but Flyzik was a driving force at the CIO Council that he served as vice chair for.

Flyzik came into his own with the passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act, said Ed Meagher, a former Veterans Affairs Department staffer.

“Many of us post Clinger Cohen CIOs were zealots who wanted to storm the bastions of entrenched resistance to change,” Meagher said. “But Jim was the ultimate pragmatic tactician. He knew how to calm us down and work methodically to get every CIO reporting directly to the secretary of their department.”

Flyzik's ability to speak in a non-threatening way to those entrenched bureaucrats was a key to his success, Meagher said.

“One could count on the monthly council meetings having a packed agenda, be high energy and sprinkled with zingers and humor. And then Jim summing up, "Okay, so this is how things will go down,” said Alan Balutis, a long-time government official and a former senior director and distinguished fellow at Cisco Systems.

“He was a leader in getting the CIO Council up and running, especially making the link between the newly created agency CIOs and the Office of Management and Budget,” said Mark Forman, a former federal CIO. “He was always positive, a person with humor and class.”

Meagher said that it was Flyzik who lured him back into government service to take VA CIO post.

“He was the master of the soft sell,” Meagher said.

While Flyzik was a leader who saw the value of IT and how it can contribute to the mission of government, many of his former colleagues talked about what he meant to them as a person.

“He cared about people both personally and professionally. He taught many of us to think beyond the boundaries that we set for ourselves,” Armstrong said.

Rob Guerra, another former government executive, shared how Flyzik liked to mentor young people. After Flyzik retired from government, he joined a consulting firm that Guerra formed with Phil Kiviat.

“Jim was a very talented and impactful guy,” Guerra said.

“One of our brightest stars went out,” said Bob Woods, a former General Services Administration official. “He was open-minded and a collaborative kind of guy. He knew that you got a better product when you had more people involved.”

After his retirement, Flyzik also joined Tom Trezza as part of the Federal Executive Forum radio program to showcase government leaders who make an impact. Flyzik became the host and moderator.

“I can’t remember a single person who would ever refuse him because of his reputation and the respect for what he accomplished while in government,” Trezza said.

Flyzik’s obituary speaks about his love for his family. His wife Candace and a daughter were by his side when he died June 4 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with his wife.

A celebration of Flyzik’s life was scheduled for June 19 at the Tower Club in Vienna, Va.

A second celebration of life is set for July 25 in Flyzik’s hometown of Lansdale, Pa., at the Cannoneers Sports Club. That event will run from 3-6 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in his name to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation at pulmonaryfibrosis.org or March of Dimes at marchofdimes.org/dmv.

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HHS plans AI pilot for employees who need more than chatbots

Alexandra Kelley — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking industry feedback on the formation of a short-term, fixed-price pilot program to inform how the agency can best employ artificial intelligence solutions across the enterprise, focusing on tools that go beyond the basic chat and summarization technologies.

In a Request for Information published on June 8, HHS is focusing on how to implement an AI product that can cater to the department’s “power users,” or individuals that leverage advanced functions in technologies and systems. The goal is for HHS to empower these users to explore advanced AI models and capabilities to see how they can acclimate to and accelerate HHS workflows.

“HHS needs to observe how power users utilize advanced AI capabilities, how those capabilities map to HHS mission workflows, what guardrails and administrative controls are necessary, what can be enabled immediately, what requires configuration or integration, and what requires additional security, privacy, records, accessibility, or authorization work before enterprise scaling,” the draft RFI reads.

HHS specifies the need for a fixed-price contract that offers “inclusive, all-you-can-eat-style access bundles” to try a variety of solutions for power users. This approach is intended to help the agency determine baseline power-user AI usage, along with an operational methodology that works for the agency as a whole.

The pilot will also examine what advanced AI models and their features will require customization to work effectively with agency workloads; how to establish security and authorization logic; and ways to contribute to a shared operational AI use framework for HHS. Specific capabilities HHS wants its power users to access and investigate include premium reasoning, long context, agentic-capable models and more.

“The pilot is intended to generate operational evidence that cannot be obtained from paper market research alone,” the RFI reads. “HHS needs to observe how power users utilize advanced AI capabilities, how those capabilities map to HHS mission workflows, what guardrails and administrative controls are necessary…and what requires additional security, privacy, records, accessibility, or authorization work before enterprise scaling.”

As the pilot begins, the RFI states that the chosen model may be accessed by up to 1,000 authorized, portable HHS power users, but includes an option to scale access to up to 10,000 power users within the agency, depending on what the developer offers.

HHS’s endeavors follow the workforce reductions at the agency that were part of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency efforts to reduce bureaucratic bloat and backlog. In May, the agency experienced more layoffs and also began undergoing job reclassifications that would shift which positions have civil service job protections and which can be more easily terminated.

In light of the staff reductions, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in April that the agency intends to hire 12,000 employees in an effort to “rightsize” the agency.

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AI skills are becoming part of the hiring baseline at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 07:00:00 -0400

As the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency rebuilds its workforce after last year’s DOGE cuts, job applicants need to bring some AI proficiency, the agency’s associate operations director said Tuesday.

“We're hiring now, and every single new person we hire has to prove some capability of AI and data management,” Navy Rear Adm. Michael Baker said at the Defense One Tech Summit. “Every single new hire has to go through AI and data management training.”

It’s not just the new employees, Baker said: “Every single old hire has to go through AI training and data management so that all of us are operating inside of the reality of what this ecosystem is.”

NGA leaders have grand visions for weaving AI into the agency’s operations. For example, officials are exploring its use for human resources tasks, a move Baker said would take “the burden off of the operator.” (Recently, a deputy director of human development at NGA expressed fears that employees would get so dependent on AI that their skills would atrophy.)

Baker said he uses an AI agent at work.

“And a real ideal is, in the future, that agent is also helping to train me.” Baker said. “We're working together as we go back and forth to think through a problem. That's been the power of, really, this agentic AI, generative capabilities that you can have as you're thinking through things … In the past, maybe you are using the machine to help you understand history. We're moving to the place where I'm using the machine to help me try to predict and understand the future.”

The Navy admiral said AI agents might eventually be used for high-level strategic planning, and said it could be used to navigate the “insatiable requirements that the intelligence community” demands when calculating risk.

Baker said it’s a balancing act when adopting that technology, and said he wants the agency to rapidly innovate but also wants to be mindful of security and avoid “chaos.”

“That is the complex pace that we're in,” Baker said. “That's a really hard challenge for leaders, but it's a pretty fun space to be in.”

NGA currently has about 14,500 civilian, military and contract employees, according to its website. It’s not clear how many people left in the Trump administration’s rush to reduce intelligence-community headcount by thousands of workers last year. Employment figures for the community’s largest agencies are classified, Reuters has reported.

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AI is taking parts of background checks from 'months to hours,' clearance agency says

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The nation’s largest counterintelligence unit aims to use artificial intelligence tools to speed security clearance reviews for people and companies seeking to do sensitive work on behalf of the government.

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency can use AI to reduce parts of the vetting process from “months to hours,” said Mark Nehmer, an agency analytics and innovation chief who spoke Tuesday on a panel at the Defense One Tech Summit in Virginia.

DCSA is the Defense Department’s main agency for conducting background investigations and vetting personnel for access to classified information, and serves as a key determinant for whether companies are eligible to work with military and intelligence agencies.

A recent congressionally approved acquisition overhaul, which encourages defense officials to prioritize goods and services from the commercial market, means that the counterintelligence agency will have to process some 43,000 clearance requests per year, he estimated.

“We’re trying to use AI exquisitely, use AI to make these little tiny decisions, and then bring that up to a human, so they can actually have a package of evidence to say, ‘I asked, and this is exactly the conclusion I will come to as a senior analyst that has to make those decisions day-in and day-out,’” Nehmer said.

He did not specify what AI systems would be used for the efforts.

The remarks are significant because they highlight how the government is applying AI to a key national security function that determines who has access to clearances, and they add another case to a long list of examples showing how the federal enterprise is using AI to speed operations.

DCSA has led the government’s background check process since 2019, when the Office of Personnel Management handed off its National Background Investigations Bureau to the Pentagon.

DCSA’s use of AI builds on a years-long effort to automate and overhaul the federal background-check system. The agency has enrolled millions of clearance holders in continuous vetting under an initiative known as Trusted Workforce 2.0, though the broader modernization effort has faced repeated delays, cost overruns and congressional scrutiny.

Over the weekend, the U.S. invoked an export control mechanism to essentially ban two major Anthropic frontier models, escalating debates over how Washington could exert itself over AI usage in the government. The decision has been widely criticized.

GovExec Editor-in-Chief Frank Konkel contributed to this report.

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Sen. Warner probes whether cyber agency workforce cuts weakened state support

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:02:13 -0400

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is pressing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for records on staffing levels and vacancies across its regional offices, warning that workforce cuts over the last year may have weakened the agency’s ability to support state and local governments facing cyber threats.

In a Tuesday letter to acting CISA Director Nick Andersen that was first shared with Nextgov/FCW, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the agency to provide both headquarters and regional organizational charts from January 2025, October 2025 and the present day, along with details on vacancies and explanations as to why employees left their posts.

The letter also asks CISA for data going back to January 2023 on services provided to state and local governments, including how many requests the agency received and fulfilled, as well as how quickly it responded.

The request comes after Warner introduced the Guaranteeing Universal Access to Cybersecurity Act — legislation first reported by Nextgov/FCW — that would restore funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or MS-ISAC, a key cyber intelligence-sharing hub used by many state and local governments.

“The Trump administration’s dramatic reduction of Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) staff, defunding of the MS-ISAC, and cutting over $700 million in CISA’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget demonstrates a dangerous underestimation of the threats facing our nation from adversaries and criminals who seek to destabilize our national security, economy, public health, and safety,” the senator wrote.

CISA is working to hire around 330 employees in the coming months, Andersen said last week. The agency has lost a significant share of its workforce over the past year after the Trump administration moved to reduce and restructure the cyber shop through a mix of layoffs, early retirement offers, transfers and program cuts. Some 180 job offers are expected by the end of June.

Warner said efforts to boost staffing are “welcome” but “they appear insufficient given the scale of threats facing our nation’s cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, particularly at the state level.”

His letter asks CISA to respond by June 26. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter flags concerns from governors, mayors, state chief information officers and others about CISA’s ability to provide services. State and local officials, cybersecurity groups and former officials have repeatedly warned that reductions in federal support leave smaller governments more vulnerable to cyberattacks, especially with midterm elections coming in November.

CISA has encouraged state and local governments to seek help from its regional teams, though half of the agency’s 10 regional directors are serving in an acting capacity, the letter adds. One CISA regional website also appears to misspell the name of its acting director, Warner wrote, referring to the spelling of Region 2 Director Mohamed Telab, whose first name is written as “Mohammed.”

Cybersecurity has long drawn bipartisan support in Washington, but CISA has become a recurring target of GOP scrutiny over its past work countering election-related disinformation. Since last year, Trump administration officials have sought to “refocus” the agency’s mission, arguing that CISA had strayed too far from its core tasks.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved some $2.35 billion for CISA in the coming 2027 fiscal year — around $253 million below its fiscal 2026 level and about $135 million below the Trump administration’s initial FY27 budget request.

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