Facebook charged with housing discrimination in targeted ads

Facebook | March 28, 2019

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) has charged Facebook with violating the Fair Housing Act, alleging that the company’s targeted advertising discriminated on the basis of race and color. In a statement, Hud said Facebook was breaking the law by restricting who can view housing-related adverts on its site, which the department said “unlawfully discriminates based on race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex, and disability”. “Further, Hud claims Facebook mines extensive data about its users and then uses those data to determine which of its users view housing-related ads based, in part, on these protected characteristics.”

Spotlight

The virtual private network (VPN) has been a powerful tool in the network security administrator’s toolbox for decades, because it has provided a means for remote computers to communicate securely across an untrusted network such as the internet. Whether for branch offices communicating with headquarters (siteto-site), or an employee working from home (remote access), the VPN provided a secure point-to-point tunnel back to resources on protected networks.

Spotlight

The virtual private network (VPN) has been a powerful tool in the network security administrator’s toolbox for decades, because it has provided a means for remote computers to communicate securely across an untrusted network such as the internet. Whether for branch offices communicating with headquarters (siteto-site), or an employee working from home (remote access), the VPN provided a secure point-to-point tunnel back to resources on protected networks.

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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Steampunk Achieves Multi-year FedRAMP Contract Award

Steampunk | February 14, 2023

Steampunk, an IT services and consulting company, has recently announced that it achieved the FedRAMP Technical Review and Analysis Support Services contract award. It has been providing support to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the FedRAMP programs, with the tasks of cybersecurity, information assurance, and risk-based reviews for FedRAMP cloud service candidates of Joint Authorization Board's Provisional Authorization to Operate (JAB P-ATO) issue. It also undertakes independent cybersecurity risk assessments of cloud service for cloud service provider (CSP) candidates, collaborating with multiple discipline IT teams and resolving security or risk detection conflicts. With the support of FedRAMP, it has worked with the largest CSPs worldwide, like Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google, along with the monitorization of more than 30 CSPs. For the task order on the DHS EAGLE II contract, it started working with FedRAMP in August 2016. It continued coordination with the FedRAMP programs for more than five years, expecting to review additional offerings over the next three years for an increase in demand for FedRAMP programs. It is also expected to partner with the General Services Administration (GSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Defense (DoD) of the United States government, securing cloud platforms for federal agencies. Chief Growth Officer of Steampunk, Brad Cole said, "Steampunk's information security work at DHS has been part of the foundation of our company. We are thrilled to continue partnering with DHS to enable secure cloud modernization across the federal government and to bring our focus on service design to help drive improvements in the FedRAMP review process." (Source – Cision PR Newswire) About Steampunk Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Steampunk, a federal contracting company, brings innovation to clients from the Homeland, Health, Federal Civilian, and DOD sectors. With its start-up culture and human-centered delivery approach, it is assisting federal agencies from design to development, enhancing their mission impacts and user experience. Being an employee-owned company, it invests in its employees to encourage and reward them for contributing to its growth. It offers services in IT solutions, modernization, disruption, machine learning, artificial intelligence, agile, design thinking, Human Centered Design (HCD), cybersecurity, data exploitation, cloud capabilities, cloud services, big data, digital platforms, development, security, and operations, government, and federal contractor services.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY,CYBERSECURITY

FedRAMP Data Security Authorization for InfoBlox’s BloxOne Threat Defense Federal Cloud

Infoblox | January 30, 2023

Leading cloud-first DNS management and security provider, Infoblox Inc., recently announced the U.S. Government FedRAMP Moderate Authorization for its BloxOne® Threat Defense Federal Cloud offering. This authorization allows organizations to operate their SaaS platforms with greater confidentiality, operational security, availability and integrity. The Infoblox BloxOne Threat Defense Federal Cloud is a part of BloxOne Threat Defense, which combines Cloud Services Portal (CSP), Dossier threat investigation platform, and Infoblox's Threat Intel Data Exchange (TIDE) to help public sector organizations scale and simplify security from the network core to the edge. Security analysts can investigate, and contextually rank threat events 3X faster with Infoblox's technology. Additionally, it gives them access to carefully curated and thorough threat intelligence, which they can incorporate into their current security technologies for network-wide protection. The U.S. Census Bureau sponsored the authorization. Infoblox team closely worked with FedRAMP Program Management Office to meet FedRAMP’s stringent guidelines for data security. The BloxOne Threat Defense Federal Cloud is compliant with FedRAMP’s security standards above the NIST SP 800-53 framework; this allows Infoblox to obtain digital transformation projects of federal agencies. Ralph Havens, President of Infloblox Federal, said, "Achieving FedRAMP authorization shows Infoblox's commitment to helping federal agencies digitally transform and secure cloud-first environments." He further added, "In reaching this significant milestone, we are delighted to now offer our federal customers a robust network security platform to augment our nation's cyber defenses against unrelenting security attacks from adversaries who wish to do us harm." (Source – CISION) About Infoblox Infoblox is a cloud-first networking and cybersecurity services provider. Its solutions enable businesses to make the most of their existing infrastructure investments and fully utilize the cloud to provide universally simple, scalable, and dependable network experiences. The Infoblox BloxOne® and NIOS systems are available on-premises and via SaaS, it lets operations teams standardize, accelerate and automate the delivery of cloud-native and data center network and security services from a single location.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Planview Gets IL4 Authorization, Deploys VSM Solution to the Department of Defense

Planview | March 08, 2023

On March 07, 2023, Planview, one of the leading platforms for connected work from portfolio planning to delivery, announced it achieved Impact Level 4 (IL4) authorization in partnership with a Planview-certified partner, Rise8. In addition, Planview's Value Stream Management (VSM) solution, Planview® Tasktop Viz, is integrated with Second Front Systems' Game Warden platform for authorization. With Authorization to Operate at IL4, Planview can deploy its VSM solution to agencies within the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community. In an increasingly digital world, the federal government intensifies the demand to build and run software that helps its people and mission. However, as government agencies struggle to keep up with contemporary solutions, the pace of IT reforms and the impact of technology on operations is at a breaking point. As a result, innovative federal programs and agencies are implementing secure operating models to improve government service delivery. In the Forrester Wave™: Value Stream Management Q4 2022 report by Sarah Morana, Chris Condo, and Kara Hartig, Planview was named a leader on December 6, 2022, after the company acquired Tasktop in the previous year. CTO at Planview and Creator of the Flow Framework®, Mik Kersten, stated, “With our VSM solution authorized to operate at the federal level, leaders can now gain unprecedented visibility into transformation efforts. We are helping to close the digital divide between the public’s expectations of modern digital experiences and what technology services the federal government can offer when building on large, complex, and legacy systems.” He added, “Planview Tasktop Viz offers clear, simple visibility by enabling data-driven decisions, uncovering bottlenecks that result in delays in planning, and gaining actionable items upfront.” (Source – Business Wire) About Planview Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Planview is a connected work platform from portfolio planning to delivery. The company is committed to its mission which is to build the future of connected work, from ideas to impact. It supports its customers from the need to speed, from passion to progress, and from overhead to optimization, accelerating the achievement of what matters most to an organization. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model empower clients to provide innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences.

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