Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is directing his department to ground its fleet of over 800 drones in a move to prevent threats from Chinese-manufactured technologies, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Nick Goodwin, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, said the drones will remain grounded until investigations into security risks conclude. He noted that drones used for emergency response will be exempted from the directive.

Currently, the department uses its drones for a range of operations encompassing dam inspection, endangered species monitoring, erosion surveying and fighting forest fires.

The move comes after the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on Chinese-built drones that include components capable of breaching flight data. Lawmakers have also introduced legislation calling on agencies to ban the procurement of drones from China and other countries with identified risks to national security.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Ron Johnson., Wis.., and James Lankford, R-Okla., have presented a bill that aims to bolster the cybersecurity of local governments via further implementation of the .gov domain.

The DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act would task the Department of Homeland of Security to help local governments adopt the .gov for email addresses and websites, Klobuchar’s office said Wednesday.

The bill would provide for resources and support that local governments require to employ the .gov domain.

“When official government websites use the .gov domain instead of alternatives like .us or .com, it makes those government websites and email addresses more secure,” Klobuchar said.

Cyber actors make false duplicates of government websites that do not use .gov, allowing these criminals to conduct information scams. The .gov domain makes it difficult for cyber actors to duplicate official government websites, Klobuchar’s office noted.

The General Services Administration has launched a community of practice dedicated to the government-wide adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. GSA said Thursday its new AI CoP will aid in machine learning and deep learning, robotic process automation, human-centered interactions, natural language processing, rule-based automation, and robotics.

The effort also supports the federal government’s collaborative strategy to propagate and secure AI technology across the U.S. in partnership with industry, academia and foreign nations.

Suzette Kent, the federal chief information officer and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, and Anil Cheriyan, GSA’s director of Technology Transformation Services, to serve as the AI CoP’s executive sponsors.

TTS’ solutions division will oversee the CoP with the leadership of Steven Babitch, a member of the Presidential Innovation Fellows.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is looking at its workforce for ideas to address challenges in health care, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

The Veterans Health Administration is facing the rise of elder population, the lack of quality care providers and increasing health care costs. The department’s employees have presented ideas to address these challenges at the recent Innovation Experience event in Washington, D.C.

VHA-selected submissions would serve as entries to the agency’s Spark-Seed-Spread program, an effort that invests resources in employee-submitted ideas.

The agency has received over 2K ideas from VA personnel since 2015, with at least 47 entries so far having achieved a gold star status under the Diffusion of Excellence effort, the report noted.

DLT Solutions announced on Thursday that the company has been recognized by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) as a National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) Champion for its efforts in promoting the awareness of online safety and privacy. 

“DLT fully supports the National Cyber Security Alliance’s mission to educate and empower both the public and private sectors to stay safer and more secure online,” said Brian Strosser, president of DLT Solutions.

Throughout 2019, DLT Solutions launched GovCybersecurityHub, co-chaired the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) Fall Briefing that focused on the intersection of leadership, transformation and security and increased awareness of its technology vendors’ software, solutions and services that make up DLT’s growing cybersecurity portfolio.

“This National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, DLT raised the bar by launching GovCybersecurityHub, an online forum dedicated to public sector cybersecurity, and co-chairing the ICIT Fall Briefing centered on the impact strong leadership has on cybersecurity,” Strosser added.

NCSAM is designed to engage and educate public and private-sector partners, through events and initiatives, with the goal of raising awareness about cybersecurity. Since the presidential proclamation establishing NCSAM in 2004, the initiative has been formally recognized by Congress, federal, state and local governments, and leaders from industry and academia.

About DLT Solutions

DLT accelerates public sector growth for technology companies in federal, state, local, education, and healthcare markets. As the premier government solutions aggregator, DLT provides industry-leading technology companies access to a robust network of partners, a broad portfolio of contract vehicles, and dedicated channel enablement services.

The Department of Defense has chosen four military installations located in California, George, Utah and Washington to demonstrate the next generation of wireless technology.

DoD said Thursday it determined that Naval Base San Diego, Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Hill Air Force Base and Joint Base Lewis-McChord have the capacity to provide access to spectrum band, wireless and fiber infrastructure and conduct controlled experiments to test a 5G network.

The Pentagon plans to release a draft solicitation notice for 5G systems this month and open up opportunities for industry to help the department establish a spectrum sharing testbed for a possible demonstration of the technology in a congested environment with midband radar devices.

DoD also seeks potential industry partners to integrate augmented and virtual reality systems into mission training activities, as well as to build 5G-based warehouses to support logistics operations.