When local schools sent parents back-to-school supply lists last year, administrators had no idea they set the stage for a potential cyber disaster. Little did they know the innocuous request that fourth-graders buy thumb drives to use for homework could unleash an infection path that could affect the school, students and countless Northern Virginian computers....
Author: Ross Wilkers Magazine (Ross Wilkers Magazine)
CSC’s James Sheaffer Retiring; David Zolet Named NA Public Sector President
James Sheaffer, president of the North American public sector at Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE: CSC), will retire later this month, the company announced Tuesday. David Zolet, president of business development for the NA public sector, will succeed Sheaffer and will be responsible for cost and profit management disciplines, the company said. Sheaffer was appointed president...
Forbes Ranks Washington Second Best STEM, Tech Jobs City
A recent Forbes magazine study ranks the greater Washington area as the second best city for technology jobs in the nation. Forbes conducted the study based on two-year and 10-year job growth numbers for science, technology, engineering and mathematics and tech jobs in the Washington area. Washington’s technology-related jobs grew by 20.6 percent since 2011 and...
For Your Eyes Only?
How Insidious Insiders Perfected the Art of Spilling Secrets Trading in national security secrets and corporate proprietary information has evolved into a different animal that reaches well beyond war and international politics — and the culprits may not be who you think. It’s been two decades since the Cold War ended, but that conflict’s legacy...
The Family Man
From Millions to Billions Sitting in a 10th-floor conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows and expansive views of Reston, Ed Casey points to a building just across the street. “See where it says Serco on that building?” Casey asks, referring to the large letters on the top floor marking Serco’s growing territory. “That used to say...
Data Breach
Stolen and leaked data. Website defacements. Compromised information. A data breach could happen to anyone, anywhere, with a potential for sky-high costs. Experts share what to do after hackers strike or insiders act. 1 DETECT “You can’t respond to a data breach unless you know that it’s happening, and you can’t know that it’s happening...
GovCon’s Executive Bookshelf
President Harry S. Truman found successful people fascinating. How they accomplished greatness intrigued him, so he read all he could about them, seeking insight and enlightenment. What he no doubt found can be summed up in the words of Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of...
It’s All in the Details
Dr. Vishal James Makker could be a medical miracle worker, saving Medicare patients from perpetual back pain, or he could be a fraudster, bent on bilking Medicare of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Portland, Ore., spinal surgeon’s higher-than-normal rate of spinal fusions jumped off the page when The Wall Street Journal conducted a survey...
insight
Advanced Persistent Threats & the Human Factor — By Ed Kanerva, vice president, Booz Allen Hamilton The ever-expanding sophistication, ubiquity and distribution of Advanced Persistent Threats — well-planned, targeted hacking attacks on computer networks — put a lot of pressure on those individuals tasked with maintaining network security within their organizations. When adversaries have a...
Cloud Control
When U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra last year unveiled his plan for federal IT reform, cloud computing took a prominent place on the agenda. Obama’s cloud crusader promoted cloud computing as a fix for government waste and as a method to spur innovation, not just in science and technology, but in every industry and at a...