Cloud adoption, software modernisation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, according to Lily Zeleke, Acting Deputy Chief Information Officer for Information Enterprise, Department of Défense, are crucial to all Defence Department missions.
“Our ability to deliver information at resilience and speed, as well as [delivering] secure information to our people, is paramount to staying ahead of adversaries,” says Lily.
The funding of these technologies within the allocated budget, she continued, is a compromise between cost-effectiveness and mission effectiveness. “Zero trust is a key aspect in the success of the transition to the cloud.”
The DOD has a vast amount of data, and zero trust is about protecting it at all levels and granting the right people access to the data they need for mission success at the correct security levels.
As outlined in the DOD’s 2022 Software Modernisation Strategy, all the services and the department are currently trying to consolidate, streamline, and deploy information enterprise modernization.
Meanwhile, 50 states have joined an anti-robocall litigation task force to investigate the telecommunications firms who are mostly held accountable for introducing foreign robocalls into the US, according to Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.
The sole objective of this cross-partisan, national Task Force is to reduce illegal robocalls as 16 states, including Connecticut, make up the Executive Committee overseeing this task force.
Although gateway providers have a duty to verify that foreign traffic entering the American phone network is lawful, they are not doing enough to prevent robocall traffic.
The Task Force will concentrate on the telecom sector to lessen the number of robocalls that Connecticut residents receive and to aid the businesses that are operating within the law.
Over 33 million scam robocalls are placed on Americans every day, according to the National Consumer Law Centre and Electronic Privacy Information Centre. Among the various frauds targeting customers, especially some of the most vulnerable populations, are Social Security Administration fraud against the elderly.
The Task Force’s main goal is to close the companies that make money off this illegal scam traffic and won’t take any other action to reduce the number of scam calls. Attorney General Tong provides the following advice for avoiding con artists and telemarketers:
The first is to be cautious of callers who expressly request that you make a gift card, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency payment. The second is to be wary of telephone calls that have already been recorded from phoney government entities. In most cases, the Social Security Administration doesn’t call people.
Similarly, do not supply any personal information and quickly end the call if you suspect fraud; and support Connecticut’s investigations by filing a complaint about robocalls.
Furthermore, according to the Attorney General, to avoid receiving spam messages, customers should report fraudulent texts to their wireless service providers and refrain from replying to texts that seem shady or are sent from an unknown number.
In addition, he cautioned against providing sensitive personal or financial information and against clicking links in dubious texts.
In addition, he advised calling a company that sends a text message to confirm the connection using a legitimate number, stressing that con artists may use their fake numbers to appear in a search engine. It was suggested to utilise something other than a search engine to authenticate the phone number.