Articles by John K. Higgins

Just when the U.S. federal budget situation seemed about to settle down -- it didn't With tens of billions of dollars at stake, federal acquisition managers and the IT vendors who support government agencies were breathing a sigh of relief when Congress and the White House agreed to a two-year government spending program last month. The agreement w...

Email systems have become so routine that consumers and workers often regard them as simply part of the furniture -- like a standard-issue desk at a government or business office However, the technology is more complex than most users appreciate -- and that complexity makes it constantly vulnerable to cybersecurity threats....

The controversy over the management of email systems by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in the spotlight since March. More recently, in October, the CIA director acknowledged that his personal email had been hacked Both situations highlight the continuing vulnerability of email, whether personal or professional....

Consumers who purchase desktop or laptop computers are able to select various options, such as screen size or type of processor. When it comes to paying for the device, however, each consumer has the buying leverage of exactly one If the customer is the U.S. government, which buys computers by the truckload, the transaction surely involves a lot of...

U.S. government agencies appear to have gotten the memo: Big data is good for you Federal agencies' acquisition, storage, processing and management of almost unimaginably large chunks of information will drive the government to use big data technologies, according to a recent survey of federal information technology managers....

It just makes too much sense. Big government can function much better if government agencies take advantage of the benefits of big data technologies. Given the perception that governments operate on a bias favoring the status quo, it may come as a surprise that U.S. government agencies are slowly but surely embracing the adoption of big data innovations...

The spectacular database breach that affected nearly 21 million people highlighted the continuing vulnerability of U.S. government information technology systems, despite the expenditure of billions each year for cybersecurity programs. The breach, which the federal Office of Personnel Management revealed this summer, resulted in the departure of ...

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars on information technology systems designed to prevent cybersecurity attacks, but the attacks still occur. Government agencies are hopeful that the learning curve will improve dramatically, and breaches will be reduced In the meantime, what happens to people affected by a breach after an attack succeeds...

Companies that experience data security breaches have a lot to worry about -- but their problems encompass much more than responding to irate consumers The business community also has to worry about the U.S. government, which can penalize e-commerce companies for failing to provide adequate protection for consumers' personal data.

U.S. government agencies are gradually learning to deal with budget constraints in the management and procurement of information technology. The emphasis on productivity comes from the Obama administration, the ripple effects of budget sequestration, and congressional pressure for efficiency "Agencies continue to face budget constraints while tryin...

Cybersecurity is a key component of all contracts between U.S. government agencies and information technology vendors. Yet cyberbreaches continue to occur -- some of them with alarming scope and depth The White House is seeking input from private sector vendors and others on how to improve the cybersecurity elements involved in federal government p...

The U.S. Defense Department is seeking vendors to participate in a multiyear information technology support program with a total contract value of US$12 billion. DoD has indicated it will release a Request for Proposals for the Encore III program, which covers a wide range of IT services, by the end of this month. The amount of the tech support co...

The process of "checking the fine print" always has been an important aspect of consumer behavior. For product manufacturers, providing important transaction information to consumers also has been a challenging part of business operations. Take the fine print of warranty information, for example. In the world of e-commerce, how should sellers and ...

Providers of open source software recently found another market: the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That market easily will grow to many thousands of potential open source users when the staffs of each representative, as well as the staffs of various House committees, are added to the total Three advocacy organizations -- the Sun...

The U.S. Defense Department, often cited as a bit sluggish in taking advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, appears now to be emerging as a government leader in adopting the technology. In the short run, DoD has far outpaced other federal agencies in setting up cloud contracts. During the first quarter of fiscal 2015, the value of all feder...

Where is the U.S. government going with the cloud? With annual federal spending on the technology now well over US$2 billion, it appears that cabinet departments and a host of other federal agencies "get it" in terms of appreciating cloud benefits. Yet many vendors and others in the information technology community view the same spending pattern a...

The Internet is run by a bunch of geeks sitting in a darkened space, lit only by the glow from LED screens, right? That Hollywood image may be how the general public perceives what it takes to send and receive emails, deliver apps, enable electronic transactions, and store great gobs of data There is much more to operating the Internet, however, in...

The U.S. government has played a central -- perhaps critical -- role in the development of the Internet. Currently the U.S. retains a stewardship position in the worldwide operation of the Internet through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department. That stewardship is slated to end, ho...

U.S. government agencies have invested time, effort and significant funding in the last several years to meet the challenges of cybersecurity threats. Unfortunately, the payoff has been disappointing, according to a report from the ISC2 Foundation, an affiliate of the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium As part of it...

The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up its program to engage more actively with the private sector on dealing with cybercrime and cybersecurity breaches. "We in government know that we cannot go it alone in fighting cybercrime. We need a strong partnership with you in the private sector," Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell recently ...