FCW Insider: Aug. 25

IRS legacy system problems could be worse than advertised

A new watchdog report finds additional systems and applications that would be considered legacy under the IT organization's own definition, and hundreds more that might or might not.

DARPA's new hardware proves tough to crack

The Defense Department's advanced research arm has early results from its effort to prove that re-engineering hardware makes for fewer cyber vulnerabilities.

FAA to test anti-drone technologies

The Federal Aviation Administration will test commercial drone detection and mitigation systems in real-world civilian airport settings.

Comment: How zero trust solves the 'weakest link' problem

Many government agencies currently have components of zero trust in their infrastructure, including identity credential and access management and continuous monitoring, so moving to a comprehensive zero trust model would just strengthen what is already there.

Quick HIts

*** Federal chief data officers are optimistic about the future of evidence-based policymaking and data-driven government, according to a survey released Aug. 24 by the Data Foundation. Large majorities of chief data officers report making improvements to agency data quality and expect progress in advancing data inventories in the future.

*** After its win of a $10 billion Defense Department cloud contract, Microsoft is making a push to supply cloud computing infrastructure around the world, according to an article in CNBC. Microsoft is still waiting to see if its win in the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program is upheld -- the contract award is the subject of a long-running lawsuit brought by cloud rival Amazon Web Services.