Furloughed Feds Poised to Receive Back Pay After House Sends Measure to Trump

Government Executive | January 11, 2019

About 350,000 federal employees currently on furlough are all but assured to receive back pay, with the House on Friday sending a measure to President Trump's desk to guarantee retroactive compensation once the partial government shutdown ends. Trump has indicated to lawmakers he will sign the legislation. The House passed the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act after the Senate approved it Thursday evening. The bill both guarantees back pay for furloughed workers and ensures that the roughly 500,000 employees working without immediate pay during the shutdown are able to take previously scheduled leave without consequence. Current governmentwide guidance requires agencies to cancel leave for those workers.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, CYBERSECURITY

Cynamics, Pioneer of Sample-based Network Detection and Response, Partners with Merlin Cyber to Meet Increasing Demand from US Federal Government

Prnewswire | April 20, 2023

Cynamics, the AI-driven cybersecurity company, is partnering with Merlin Cyber to bring its novel, sample-based network detection and response (NDR) solution to the rapidly expanding US federal government market. A new subsidiary launched with Merlin, Cynamics Federal, will be wholly dedicated to bringing this NDR solution to the federal market, helping US government agencies safeguard critical and sensitive information from ever-growing threats. Working closely with US government agencies, Cynamics last month identified a new range of critical vulnerabilities within current protection layers. These findings, along with Cynamics' state-of-the-art proven NDR technologies, will be showcased at the RSA conference on April 24-27 in San Francisco. "Cynamics has already been working closely with government agencies across the US, and we are excited to introduce our low-touch, built-for-scale NDR solution to the federal government in cooperation with Merlin Cyber," said Eyal Elyashiv, CEO and Founder of Cynamics. Analogous to the accuracy of taking a blood sample, Cynamics' cloud-based solution collects less than 1% of network flow samples and uses its AI technologies to provide 100% network coverage and threat prediction for any network size and environment. Recently, Gartner highlighted Cynamics as an NDR "emerging vendor" leveraging packet sampling as a new data-collection approach. This unique method discovers network blind spots, exposes potential backdoors, identifies anomalous behavior, and enables quick and straightforward remediation. According to Elyashiv, no other solution currently has this capability while being built-to-scale for the US federal government and the largest and most complicated networks in the world. The solution is deployed in a frictionless way within minutes, without installing a single appliance or agent, and begins to deliver valuable insights within hours from onboarding, using only network metadata and without collecting, processing, or analyzing any sensitive or private information, which is a key advantage for the federal audience. This vastly reduces supply chain vulnerabilities. Cynamics has hundreds of clients across the public and private sectors, of different domains, sizes, and geographies. Deep cyber expertise is not required to use and manage the solution, which makes the technology easier for government agencies to deploy. Casting light on a little-known vulnerability, Elyashiv said that the fact that legacy mDNS (multicast DNS) and LLMNR (Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution) are used to resolve hostnames to IP addresses, by sending highly vulnerable multicast messages across local networks, enabled sophisticated attackers to map out the networks and infect them more effectively. "Cynamics' solution offers state-of-the-art protection quickly and with surgical precision for the most valuable assets in our network," said Jad Al-Bijaly, Information Technology and Cybersecurity Manager for Guilford County, North Carolina, a trusted Cynamics customer. Other customers include the cities of Rocky Mount, Urbandale, Saratoga Springs, and others. According to Gartner, in 2022, "the industries with the most interest in NDR continued to be the government and finance industries." Having generated more than $4 billion in contracts to date, Merlin Cyber partners with industry-recognized companies as well as startups, seeing them through all stages of their development and go-to-market execution. Merlin Ventures, the investment arm of Merlin Group, invests most of its capital in startups from Israel, a global hub of innovation in the cybersecurity sector, accelerating them from seed to scale. "The partnership with Cynamics reflects Merlin's commitment to providing a gateway for the most promising global cybersecurity startups to help protect America's critical digital infrastructure," said Seth Spergel, Managing Partner of Merlin Ventures. "We've been tracking the success of Cynamics and are proud to join as both an investor and a partner in helping to bring their solutions to market. Their AI-based network detection and response solution is unique and ideal for how large government networks are architected." About Merlin Cyber Merlin Cyber is the go-to-market arm of Merlin Group, a powerful ecosystem of cybersecurity investment, technical expertise, and partner growth acceleration with 25 years of experience working with the US government. Through Merlin Cyber, federal civilian, defense, state, local and education customers access innovative, public sector-ready cybersecurity solutions that meet government requirements and mission priorities. Merlin does this by selectively partnering with best-in-class cybersecurity brands, investing in visionary emerging technologies, accelerating partner growth, and enabling the US government to successfully keep ahead of today's critical threats, accelerate modernization initiatives, and defend our nation. Learn more at merlincyber.com About Cynamics Cynamics is the only Next Generation (NG) Cloud Network Detection and Response (NDR) solution on the market today using standard sampling protocols built-in to every gateway, patented algorithms, as well as AI and Machine Learning, to provide threat prediction and visibility at speed and scale. Built to protect networks of all sizes and complexity, its highly scalable approach discovers threats missed by competitors and provides clients and partners with an elite defense against cyberattacks, with little-to-no burden on their resources. To learn more visit: https://www.cynamics.ai/

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

CODAN Communications Selects Draganfly's UAV platform to Integrate as a Premium Communication Solution for Government and Defense Customers

Globenewswire | April 17, 2023

Draganfly Inc., an award-winning, industry-leading drone solutions, and systems developer, is pleased to announce it has been selected by CODAN Communications, a leading international designer and manufacturer of premium communications solutions, to supply its UAV platform for integration with their industry-leading technology and communications solutions. CODAN Communications serves tactical, military, humanitarian, peacekeeping, public safety, security, and commercial markets in over 150 countries. CODAN designs and deliver solutions that help to solve customers’ communications, safety, security, and productivity problems in some of the most challenging environments around the world. “Like Draganfly, CODAN delivers its capabilities worldwide for the military, defense, humanitarian, peacekeeping, commercial, security, and public safety markets,” said Paul Sangster, President of CODAN Communications. “This partnership will provide turnkey solutions to customers that leverage Draganfly’s class-leading drones and CODAN’s robust technologies for systems that are second to none in their ability to service the global market in any application across all industries.” “We are excited for CODAN and Draganfly to provide innovative solutions to complex problems faced by organizations operating in challenging environments,” said Cameron Chell, President, and CEO of Draganfly. “Draganfly's being selected to integrate our UAV platform into CODAN’s premium Government and Defense platform is an incredible honor and an important milestone as CODAN is demonstrated global leader in radio and communication technology.” About Draganfly Draganfly Inc. is the creator of quality, cutting-edge drone solutions, software, and AI systems that revolutionize how organizations can do business and service their stakeholders. Recognized as being at the forefront of technology for over 24 years, Draganfly is an award-winning industry leader serving the public safety, agriculture, industrial inspections, security, mapping, and surveying markets. Draganfly is a company driven by passion, ingenuity, and the need to provide efficient solutions and first-class services to its customers around the world with the goal of saving time, money, and lives. About CODAN Communications CODAN Communications is a global technology company that develops robust technology solutions to solve customers’ communications, safety, security and productivity problems in some of the harshest environments around the world. We provide tactical communications solutions that enable our customers to be connected, ultimately to support critical missions worldwide. With almost 60 years in the business, we have garnered a reputation for quality, reliability and customer satisfaction, producing innovative and industry-leading technology solutions.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

ABBYY Expands Strategic Partnerships to Accelerate Modernization of Government Agencies

Businesswire | April 28, 2023

ABBYY today announced it has expanded its partnerships that serve state and local government agencies. Data from the Government Accountability Office revealed that federal IT legacy systems cost over $330 million annually to maintain, while delivering sub-optimal service and carrying risks inherent to older platforms. To address the agencies’ needs to modernize both back-end and consumer-facing IT systems, ABBYY partnerships will expand the accessibility of its intelligent automation solutions to streamline cumbersome processes, enhance citizen experiences and improve the overall ability to meet constituents’ needs. Among ABBYY’s expanded partnerships is MCCi, which was recently named as a company to watch in the annual GovTech 100. MCCi has numerous ongoing initiatives to digitally transform government services, including unemployment and Social Security fraud mitigation and accounts payable automation. The city of Coppell, Texas is among their customers that have successfully automated accounts payable processes using ABBYY intelligent document processing solutions to turn key document insights into efficient outcomes. By leveraging ABBYY technology, Coppell reduced invoice processing time from days to minutes. “Right out of the box, ABBYY intelligent document processing was very impressive,” said Jerod Anderson, director of Enterprise Solutions for the city of Coppell. “We gave it a dozen of our invoices, and it processed with 99% accuracy on 90% of those. It uses machine learning, so once it’s corrected, the next time an invoice from that vendor comes through, ABBYY understands it and will process it with 100% accuracy.” Additionally, MCCi holds a contract with the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) where ABBYY is a part of an approved distributor solution. ABBYY is also approved through several other government contracts, including the State of New York Information Technology Umbrella Contract, the State of California Software License Program, and the NASPO ValuePoint Cooperative Purchasing Contract via Carahsoft. Furthermore, our approval through Carahsoft has enabled state agencies to leverage ABBYY IDP and Proof of Identity in the motor vehicle sector to expedite document review and identity verification and proofing. “Our expanded partnership with ABBYY to serve the public sector is crucial because in many cases paper processes are necessary to provide services to constituents caught in the digital divide,” stated Donny Barstow, CEO of MCCi. “Paper forms do not have to slow modernization efforts. Clients like Coppell, TX are accelerating their adoption of automation technologies because of all the aforementioned drivers and are having proven, repeated success in improving their citizens’ experience.” Bruce Orcutt, SVP of Product Marketing at ABBYY commented, "Agencies in the public sector work with trusted, best-in-breed solutions that are scalable and easy to deploy. We have the expertise to address the growing document-centric challenges of these agencies, especially as rises in unemployment claims increase the need to accelerate processing while mitigating fraud risk. MCCi has deep connections and understands the public sector, enabling them to navigate citizens’ weariness toward poor service experiences. Strategic partnerships like these are instrumental to our growth and contributions in the public sector.” As citizens grow accustomed to exemplary customer experiences provided by Amazon and banking institutions, their expectations of government entities evolve. For example, a recent ABBYY survey identified the top three factors contributing to the public dropping out of registration for government services as taking too much time/too many steps (54%), requiring excessive and repetitive manual entry (50%), and making identity verification too difficult (26%). About ABBYY ABBYY powers intelligent automation. We reimagine the way people work and how companies accelerate business by delivering the intelligence that fuels automation platforms. Our solutions transform enterprise data and empower you with the insights you need to work smarter and faster. We help more than 10,000 companies globally, including many of the Fortune 500, to drive significant impact where it matters most: customer experience, profitability, and competitive advantage. ABBYY is a US-based global company with offices in 14 countries. For more information, visit www.abbyy.com. About MCCi MCCi is a business process automation company that accelerates digital transformation by adding intelligence to your processes. As an IT services company with expertise in delivering end-to-end professional services provider, we provide our clients some of the leading technologies for business process automation, including Laserfiche for content services, Blue Prism and UiPath for robotic process automation, ABBYY for intelligent capture, and One Span for digital signatures. We are a trusted partner to over 1,100 government organizations, including cities, counties, state agencies, special districts, K-12, and higher education and are a proud GovTech 100 company for 2023.

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