Implementing PaC involves secure coding, robust access strategies, automated testing, continuous monitoring, and regulatory compliance.

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Leveraging Security in a Platform-as-Code Universe

The General Services Administration has been on a roll lately, negotiating what it calls OneGov agreements with some of the federal government’s biggest IT vendors. On Thursday, GSA announced it has negotiated a governmentwide purchasing agreement with Amazon Web Services that could save agencies up to $1 billion through credits for AWS services. The deal is the latest in a flurry of OneGov agreements GSA has initiated under the Trump administration to consolidate and centralize IT purchasing at scale and unlock greater, consistent savings for civilian agencies, rather than agencies negotiating one-off contracts with vendors themselves. As part of the governmentwide package, AWS has come to the table offering direct incentive credits that could total up to $1 billion in value for cloud services, modernization support and training. The deal will run through Dec. 31, 2028. In addition to streamlining federal IT procurement by working as a single, unified federal entity, GSA’s OneGov initiative also aims to work directly with technology developers themselves, rather than intermediaries such as value-added resellers. As such, GSA touts the potential for additional savings by contracting directly with the cloud giant for its services.

That deal comes just a day after GSA announced a similar one with OpenAI that will offer its ChatGPT tool to federal agencies for just $1. It marks the artificial intelligence firm’s latest effort to expand use of its generative AI chatbot across the federal government. Like the AWS deal, GSA said the agreement with OpenAI supports the White House’s AI Action Plan, which encourages widespread adoption of AI in the federal government. Through the partnership, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise product can be purchased by federal agencies for $1 per agency for one year. GSA called this a “deeply discounted rate.”  Commenting on the deal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement: “One of the best ways to make sure AI works for everyone is to put it in the hands of the people serving the country.”

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Federal agencies can buy ChatGPT for $1; New deal with AWS brings $1B in potential credits for agencies

The U.S. judiciary announced plans to increase security for sensitive information on its case management system following what it described as “recent escalated cyberattacks of a sophisticated and persistent nature.” In a Thursday statement, the federal judiciary said it’s “taking additional steps to strengthen protections for” that information. It also said its “further enhancing security of the system and to block future attacks, and it is prioritizing working with courts to mitigate the impact on litigants.” The statement from the third branch comes one day after a Politico report revealed that its case filing system had recently been breached. That report cited unnamed sources who were concerned that the identities of confidential court informants may have been compromised. While the federal courts’ statement acknowledged a recent escalation in cyberattacks on its case management system, it didn’t confirm details of the reported breach. In response to a FedScoop request for additional information about the reported attack, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to comment and pointed back to the statement. The reported hack and statement come after a cyberbreach of the same system in 2020. In early 2021, during a hack of SolarWinds’ Orion products, the federal courts disclosed that it found “apparent compromise” of the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system (CM/ECF) and was investigating the matter. Its statement after that breach similarly indicated that “federal courts are immediately adding new security procedures to protect highly sensitive confidential documents filed with the courts.”

Jamie Holcombe is joining Maryland-based technology company US AI after wrapping up roughly six-and-a-half years as the chief information officer of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Holcombe, who served as both CIO and chief AI officer at USPTO, will be vice president of the AI firm, with a focus on scaling its technology throughout the federal government, according to a Thursday announcement from US AI shared with FedScoop. Holcombe’s last day at the agency was Wednesday, according to a USPTO spokeswoman. Deborah Stephens, deputy CIO for the agency, will serve as acting CIO. At USPTO, Holcombe oversaw “one of the federal government’s largest IT transformations,” per the announcement. That work included leading the agency’s transition to a cloud-first environment and the launch of its AI Lab, where USPTO can test use cases.   As part of his new role, Holcombe will work to expand US AI’s Intelligent Computing Platform, which is aimed at accelerating the adoption of AI in sectors that are highly regulated, across government. He will also lead the company’s strategy to align its technology with its use in public sector and regulated areas, scaling codeless and zero-trust tools, and build on the company’s “values of clarity, security, and accessibility in AI deployment.”

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Federal courts ramp up filing system security after ‘recent escalated cyberattacks’; Jamie Holcombe steps down as USPTO CIO

The Army will be creating a marketplace to better match drones with units based on their requirements. With so many vendors providing a variety of unmanned aerial systems, it can be difficult for formations to determine if certain systems will in fact meet their needs. Col. Danielle Medaglia, project manager for UAS at program executive office for aviation, shared details about the new initiative during a recent teleconference, saying it is meant to ensure drones products do what they advertise they can do, along with confirming NDAA compliance and other specs. The forthcoming marketplace is part of the drone revolution occurring within the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a directive last month on “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” which sought to improve how the department develops and employs small UAS. That directive calls for every squad to be equipped with low-cost, expendable drones by the end of 2026. Army offiicals called the new marketplace and approach a “fundamental shift” in how traditional acquisition is conducted. The goal is to get systems into the hands of troops as quickly as possible. 

The Pentagon’s two-year public competition to spur the development of cyber-reasoning systems that use large language models to autonomously find and patch vulnerabilities in open-source software concluded Friday with $8.5 million awarded to three teams of security specialists at DEF CON. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s AI Cyber Challenge seeks to address a persistent bottleneck in cybersecurity — patching vulnerabilities before they are discovered or exploited by would-be attackers. DARPA Director Stephen Winchell said: “We’re living in a world right now that has ancient digital scaffolding that’s holding everything up. A lot of the code bases, a lot of the languages, a lot of the ways we do business, and everything we’ve built on top of it has all incurred huge technical debt… It is a problem that is beyond human scale.” The seven semifinalists that earned their spot out of 90 teams convened at last year’s DEF CON were scored against their models’ ability to quickly, accurately and successfully identify and generate patches for synthetic vulnerabilities across 54 million lines of code. The models discovered 77% of the vulnerabilities presented in the final scoring round and patched 61% of those synthetic defects at an average speed of 45 minutes, the competition organizers said. The models also discovered 18 real zero-day vulnerabilities, including six in the C programming language and 12 in Java codebases. The teams’ models patched none of the C codebase zero-days, but automatically patched 11 of the Java zero-days, according to the final results shared Friday. Team Atlanta took the first-place prize of $4 million, Trail of Bits won second place and $3 million in prize money, and Theori ranked third, taking home $1.5 million. The competition’s organizers allocated an additional $1.4 million in prize money for participants who can demonstrate when their technology is deployed into critical infrastructure.


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The Army looks to build a drone marketplace; DARPA’s AI Cyber Challenge reveals winning models

Federal agencies will now have access to Anthropic’s Claude model for $1, the General Services Administration announced Tuesday, continuing the agency’s push for artificial intelligence products across government.  Under the OneGov deal, all three branches of government will be able to use Anthropic’s Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government for a nominal $1 fee. Approval for members of Congress and the judiciary is pending, the GSA noted. It is the latest in a series of deals between private AI firms and the federal government to increase the use of automation in agency workflows and boost workers’ productivity and efficiency.  Anthropic said in a release Tuesday: “We believe the U.S. public sector should have access to the most advanced AI capabilities to tackle complex challenges, from scientific research to constituent services. By combining broad accessibility with uncompromising security standards, we’re helping ensure AI serves the public interest.” Anthropic’s Claude for Government models have FedRAMP High certification and can be used by federal workers dealing with “sensitive unclassified work,” while Claude for Enterprise models have expanded features for data protection, Anthropic said.  Anthropic said it will also offer technical support for agencies to implement its products into workflows. 

The Federal Risk Management and Authorization Program has already approved more than twice as many government cloud services in fiscal year 2025 as all of fiscal 2024, the General Services Administration announced Monday. FedRAMP reached 114 authorizations in July for fiscal 2025, along with four new cloud services through the FedRAMP 20x revamp program, according to a GSA statement. In fiscal 2024, FedRAMP authorized 49 cloud service providers, according to a GSA spokesperson. The reform program, unveiled in March, is focused on simplifying the authorization process and shaving the approval timeline from months to weeks. Eventually, agency sponsorship will no longer be needed to win authorization, a process that is often expensive and time-consuming. The new numbers come just over a year since the Office of Management and Budget published a memo calling for the modernization of the cloud authorization process. GSA said FedRAMP had a “significant backlog” at the time of the memo, with authorizations taking more than a year. A year later, FedRAMP’s increased use of automation and streamlined workflows cut the wait time to about five weeks, the GSA said.

Anthropic offers Claude AI to federal agencies for $1; FedRAMP authorizations in 2025 already more than double last year

Two-time Trump administration vet Lynne Parker has exited as principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy following the release of the administration’s AI plan. In a LinkedIn post Tuesday, Parker said she was “passing the torch” and had fulfilled her mission of helping the Trump administration “hit the ground running,” citing the launch of AI innovation and education initiatives as well as drone-focused policy, and the administration’s “gold standard” science initiative. She said she plans to return to her retirement in Tennessee. Parker joined the administration in January, working alongside OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. In addition to her OSTP title, she was also named executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Parker had returned to the current Trump administration after serving as deputy CTO and founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on her departure. In addition to Parker, OSTP senior policy advisor Dean Ball also recently announced he was leaving the White House following the release of the administration’s anticipated AI Action Plan last month. Ball rejoined the Foundation for American Innovation, a technology-focused think tank formerly known as the Lincoln Network, as a fellow focused on AI policy and governance models for emerging technology.

The cloud management company Box is the latest agency to strike a deal with the General Services Administration to offer its artificial intelligence services to the federal government at a fraction of the normal price. The GSA said in an announcement Wednesday that federal agencies can buy Box’s Enterprise Plus for Government software for up to 75% off and the company’s Enterprise for Advanced Government software discounted by up to 65% of the listed price for a year-long term.  The announcement follows a series of other deals with major AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic that aim to increase the use of AI across the federal government. Like the other OneGov collaborations, the GSA said Box’s AI platform will help boost productivity at agencies, automate workflows and assist with tasks like document generation, e-signatures and forms. 

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Lynne Parker exits White House following publication of AI plan; GSA inks deal with Box for discounted AI products

The General Services Administration rolled out a new governmentwide tool Thursday that gives federal agencies the ability to test major artificial intelligence models, a continuation of Trump administration efforts to ramp up government use of automation.  The AI evaluation suite, titled USAi.gov, launched Thursday morning and allow federal agencies to test various AI models, including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta to start, two senior GSA officials told FedScoop. The launch of USAi underscores the Trump administration’s increasing appetite for AI integration into federal government workspaces. The GSA has described these tools as a way to help federal workers with time-consuming tasks, like document summaries, and give government officials access to some of the country’s leading AI firms.  The GSA, according to one of the officials, will act as a “curator of sorts” for determining which models will be available for testing on USAi. The official noted that additional models are being considered for the platform, with input from GSA’s industry and federal partners, and that American-made models are the primary focus. Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk’s xAI firm, is notably not included on the platform for its launch Thursday.

Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the country’s leading AI companies, recently announced that they’re offering their powerful models to federal agencies for $1 for the next year. But the new deals, which are both available through a General Services Administration OneGov contract vehicle, don’t on their own clear the way for widespread government adoption of artificial intelligence. Instead, the new financial incentive seems to be daring government officials to move quickly and approve the technology as soon as possible. Currently, no major AI provider is authorized under FedRAMP, a critical security program that allows agencies to use a company’s cloud services — including software or models offered on a cloud service — across government. While several companies — including Anthropic, xAI and OpenAI — have released government-focused product suites, they’re still somewhat dependent on cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon that have already cleared the FedRAMP process. If AI companies want to sell much of their technology directly to the government, they need their own authorization-to-operate or ATO. What’s changed, though, is that federal officials now have a new reason to move through security review processes more quickly, a former GSA employee and another person familiar with the matter both told FedScoop. That strategy could involve going through an authorization-to-operate process through an agency’s authorizing official — typically, their chief information officer — as well as the security review process explicated by FedRAMP, both people said. GSA is now looking at strategies to speed up the process. An agency spokesperson confirmed that these companies still need to seek FedRAMP authorization if they want to offer their technology directly. But to make that happen faster, GSA is now consulting with the Chief Information Officers Council and the board that oversees FedRAMP about “prioritization for AI companies” that are added to GSA’s multiple award schedule. 

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GSA unveils USAi; How the government is working to fast-track security reviews for AI companies

In a sweeping announcement about a forthcoming executive order, President Donald Trump argued Monday that states are ultimately subservient to the White House when it comes to setting election policy. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that states are “merely an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the federal government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.” Trump also claimed the executive order would end mail-in voting, falsely claiming that other countries stopped the practice due to fraud, as well as “very expensive and SERIOUSLY CONTROVERSIAL voting machines.” It’s not clear which voting machines Trump was referencing. The president’s allies and friendly media outlets like Fox News and NewsMax were successfully sued by Smartmatic and Dominion for billions of dollars after the 2020 election for falsely claiming that their voting machines were rigged to elect Democratic President Joe Biden. Either way, Trump has lost dozens of lawsuits attempting to prove fraud, and reportedly nearly signed an executive order at the end of his last term ordering the Department of Defense to seize voting machines, purportedly to examine them for fraud. A previous executive order from Trump this year, purporting to compel the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission to alter voter registration request forms to include a proof of citizenship section and deny forms to states or voters who don’t provide the information, was struck down by a judge as unconstitutional in April. The judge in the ruling remarked that “no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process” on regulating elections via executive order.

A federal watchdog is urging the Office of Management and Budget to prioritize the governmentwide adoption of a federal IT spending framework, or end the efforts, after finding the multi-year initiative has stalled. In a report made public Monday, the Government Accountability Office recommended that the OMB director direct the federal chief information officer to either terminate the agency’s push for governmentwide adoption of the Technology Business Management framework or deem it an administration priority.  Should it be made a priority, the GAO also suggested OMB quickly implement the watchdog’s previous recommendations and take “immediate action” to integrate the framework across government fully. 

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Trump threatens executive order on elections; Watchdog says OMB must prioritize federal IT spending framework, or scrap it

The China-based artificial intelligence model DeepSeek isn’t available for widespread use at the Department of Energy, but approval of some elements may be possible following a study by two of its national labs, an agency IT official said Tuesday. DeepSeek’s launch has prompted congressional proposals to rein in its use in government and proactive bans by several federal agencies, including DOE. But during a panel at a FedScoop-produced Salesforce event, Bridget Carper — the agency’s deputy CIO for architecture, engineering, technology and innovation — said the model has still been studied by two DOE national labs. Carper said the agency allowed two of its labs — which she didn’t identify — to look at the system “because there’s value in testing the open models. There’s value in understanding the performance. How does it actually compare?” The separate labs looked at the model to see if they could do comparisons with alternatives they had, Carper said. Those studies also took place with guardrails. They were controlled, sanctioned and fully documented, she said. And ultimately, they found some potential benefits.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is taking over the “authority, direction, and control” of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, according to new guidance issued last Thursday by Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg that presents an accelerated plan to disrupt and transform how the emerging technology is adopted across the Defense Department and military. Feinberg wrote in a memorandum to Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and defense agency and DOD field activity directors that “by aligning the CDAO under the USD(R&E), we create a powerful innovation engine that can deliver Al superiority from laboratory to battlefield.” The CDAO had previously been a direct report to the deputy SecDef. DefenseScoop obtained a copy of the directive from a source who requested anonymity to share it last Friday, after others alerted the publication of its creation. A defense official subsequently acknowledged the memo’s existence in an email — noting that the CDAO will continue to execute all current statutory responsibilities without interruption during this transition. The defense official said the realignment is “the next step in making a uniform, AI-first push for the [DOD],” adding that it won’t create additional review layers or bureaucratic processes.

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Department of Energy national labs study DeepSeek; A major shakeup in the Pentagon’s AI enterprise

As part of its ongoing work with the National Nuclear Security Administration, Anthropic is now working on a new tool designed to help detect when new AI systems output troubling discussions of nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence systems have the potential to uncover all sorts of new chemical compounds. While many of those discoveries might be promising, and yield, for example, formulas to help propel nuclear energy sources, they might also risk outputting information that could make it easier to design a nuclear weapon. In a new blog post, the company said that along with the NNSA and the Energy Department’s national laboratories, it’s developed a classifier that’s able to automatically determine whether nuclear conversation with an AI chatbot is benign or concerning, with 96% accuracy. The system was developed based on an NNSA-curated list of nuclear risk indicators. 

Individuals will soon be able to verify their identities using their passports on the General Services Administration’s Login.gov platform, marking the agency’s latest efforts to boost user friendliness on the single-sign-on service.  According to a GSA announcement published Wednesday, individuals will soon be able to submit a picture of their passport’s biographical page during Login.gov’s identity proofing process. Once Login.gov receives a passport photo, it will then check the photo against passport records managed by the State Department, the GSA said, noting State manages a “privacy-preserving” API for this. Login.gov gives the public the option to log into multiple federal, state and local government websites using just one account once a user’s identity is verified. Under its current format, users looking to create a Login.gov account are often required to take a picture of themselves and submit that with a photo of their state-issued ID or driver’s license for comparison. The move to accept passports is part of a new partnership between GSA’s Technology Transformation Services and the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, with the GSA describing it as a “first-of-its-kind partnership between federal agencies to use authoritative government records as a source for identity verification.”

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Anthropic developing a new tool to detect concerning AI talk of nuclear weapons; Login.gov will start accepting passports for identity verification

President Donald Trump called for improvements to federal government websites in a Thursday executive order, arguing the U.S. government “has lagged behind in usability and aesthetics.” The new directive is focused on both digital and physical spaces and launches an initiative it calls “America by Design” to achieve the administration’s goals. That effort will be led by a new National Design Studio and chief design officer that will coordinate agency actions. Federal agencies, for their part, will be required to “produce initial results” by July 4, 2026.  The executive order states that “the National Design Studio will advise agencies on how to reduce duplicative design costs, use standardized design to enhance the public’s trust in high-impact service providers, and dramatically improve the quality of experiences offered to the American public.”Specifically, agencies are required to prioritize improving websites and physical spaces “that have a major impact on Americans’ everyday lives.” The administrator of the General Services Administration is also instructed to consult with the new design official to update the U.S. Web Design System consistent with the order. The U.S. Web Design System is a community to help agencies with design and maintenance of their digital presence that was initially established by 18F, which the Trump administration eliminated, and the U.S. Digital Service, which was turned into the DOGE.

Google will make its Gemini AI models and tools available to the federal government for less than 50 cents through a new General Services Administration deal, making the company the latest to offer its technology to agencies at just a marginal cost. Google, which announced the launch of  “Gemini for Government” on Thursday, said the tool is a “complete AI platform” that will include high-profile Gemini models. The new government-focused product suite comes as other AI companies — including xAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI — begin to offer similar public sector versions of their enterprise AI products. Unlike those other companies, though, Google already has an extensive federal government cloud business. For now, the government Gemini product will be limited to Google’s cloud programs. The platform will include access to NotebookLM AI, a research and note taking tool, and AI agents for deep research and idea generation. The platform will cost 47 cents per agency for one year and the offer will stand through 2026, according to the GSA.

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Trump targets federal web design in new executive order; Google’s ‘Gemini for Government’ offers AI platform to federal agencies for 47 cents

Insights and discussions from Usability Dynamics on cybersecurity, cloud automation, and the future of the web.

Leveraging Security in a Platform-as-Code Universe

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