Technically Speaking

Every federal IT pro understands the importance of network monitoring, systems management, database performance monitoring, and other essential functions. The IT infrastructure must be working optimally to ensure overall performance. What about application performance?

On Tax Day, 2018, the unthinkable (but not unexpected) happened. The IRS’ IT system crashed after a hardware issue took down a number of apps including those that interface with third-party tax preparation software as well as the IRS Direct Pay application. IRS IT Systems are Decades Old

Many state and local governments are approaching the end of their fiscal year (June 30th). Between now and then government contractors can expect an acceleration in purchasing as agencies rush to spend “use it or lose it” dollars.

Late in 2017, Autodesk and ESRI announced a new partnership to “advance infrastructure planning and design”. The relationship was positioned as helping build a bridge between building information modeling (BIM) and GIS technologies. But what does the relationship mean for government infrastructure projects? Taking 3D Contextual Design to the Next Level

Shortly after the federal government suffered it’s largest and costliest data breach ever at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), a post-mortem analysis found that the breach was entirely preventable, and the exfiltration of security clearance files of government employees and contractors could have been prevented through the implementation of two-factor authentication for remote log-ons.

Movies and TV would have us believe that data breaches are long, hard-fought battles between the good guy and the bad guy—and the bad guy wins. That could not be further from reality. Hackers are opportunistic. They want to spend as little time as possible getting into the system, getting what they need, getting out, and exploiting it as fast as possible.