News

The Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) has provided the visibility that I need to do my job. Notably, as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Department of Education, it gives me voting and veto rights on the review boards that determine where our IT dollars get spent, even for our larger components, such as Federal Student Aid (FSA).

Over the past six months, the Federal CIO Council (CIOC), in partnership with GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy, worked to author a report that would provide an understanding of where Federal IT is and how to continue to improve on managing and modernizing it. That report – the State of Federal Information Technology (SOFIT) Report is now released.

HTTPS is a necessary baseline for security on the modern web. Non-secure HTTP connections lack integrity protection, and can be used to attack citizens, foreign nationals, and government staff. HTTPS provides increased confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity that mitigate these attacks.

This is the eighth in a series describing how the Social Security Administration is working towards a more modern IT infrastructure.