Oversight

IRS program to assist poor taxpayers rarely picks up the phone

TIGTA investigators were unable to leave a message at 16 local Taxpayer Advocate Service offices because their voicemail boxes were full.

New tech, personnel will help CISA with coming rush of cyber incident reports

CISA said “an automated mechanism” could help it better process and review a coming deluge of new cyber incident reports but could not be accounted for in its current budget.

Cost overruns, delays plague VA’s new integrated financial management system

The rollout of VA’s modernized financial management and acquisition system has been affected by delays in the department’s new electronic health record system, since “multiple deployments” depend on the EHR’s launch at medical facilities.

Several DOD IT programs still don’t have a cyber strategy, watchdog finds

Cyber strategy requirements in the Defense Department’s IT business unit date back to at least 2014. A government watchdog thinks it's time for an update.

Pentagon background-check systems at risk of hacking, GAO says

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency didn’t fully implement DOD’s cybersecurity process, a new report finds.

Decade-old cyber advice from GAO remains unimplemented, watchdog says

Reliance on legacy IT systems creates challenges for agencies looking to make use of the suggestions.

VA still needs to shore up usability of new EHR system, GAO says

More than one-third of the government watchdog's priority open recommendations for the Department of Veterans Affairs have to do with improving oversight and management of the new electronic health record system. 

Defense Digital Service directors tapped unauthorized tech without proper waivers, watchdog finds

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General found that former Defense Digital Service heads had “exposed DOD information to additional cybersecurity risk and increased the risk of compromise.”

Watchdog calls out EPA for continued cybersecurity concerns

The EPA has still not implemented GAO’s 2019 recommendation to develop a process for conducting an organization-wide cybersecurity risk assessment. 

DOD, VA need more data on how their toxic exposure tracking app is used, watchdog says

A report from the Government Accountability Office found that oversight of the joint system for centralizing toxic exposure records has fallen off, despite a growing influx of PACT Act-related claims.

DOD’s new EHR faces low user satisfaction and integration challenges, watchdog finds

A GAO report found that “integration opportunities remain” at the joint DOD and VA rollout of their modernized EHR systems at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center last month.

Lawmakers propose extending pandemic analytics center beyond 2025 sunset

Oversight officials say that the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence needs to survive past the looming sunset date, unlike a similar analytics center used to oversee stimulus spending that shuttered in 2015.

Issues with VA’s new EHR have contributed to patient harms and one death, watchdog says

Three new reports from VA’s Office of Inspector General detail problems with the pharmacy module and scheduling service of the Oracle Cerner EHR system that made it difficult to reschedule medical appointments and effectively track veterans’ prescriptions.

GSA officials have ‘fundamental disagreements’ with OIG in legality of Chinese camera purchases, per House committee

The agency’s procurement of Owl Labs cameras as part of a pilot program came under scrutiny in January.

DHS inventory of AI systems for cybersecurity is ‘not accurate’, oversight report says

The report calls on the DHS to better verify its AI inventory submissions and for CISA to develop AI cybersecurity progress metrics.

National Cyber Strategy needs better implementation measures, GAO argues

The White House Office of the National Cyber Director can improve on performance measures and cost estimations, the U.S. federal oversight agency said in a Thursday analysis.

Agencies are losing out on software savings, GAO finds

Agencies don’t have the right data and aren’t always checking to make sure they’re not over- or under-purchasing software licenses, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.