Federal Cloud Transition Will Save $5 Billion Yearly

A look at the week of May 30 in public advocacy for the IT channel

This week, the Pentagon concluded that foreign cyber attacks can be considered an act of war. Lockheed Martin suffered a cyber attack on its networks.  Federal CIO Vivek Kundra expects big financial savings from the federal cloud transition.

Cyber Combat Declared an Act of War — The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force. The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Defense Contractor Suffers Cyberattack — Lockheed Martin was the target of a "significant and tenacious attack" on its computer networks.  The prominent defense contractor claims its security team detected the attack almost immediately and was able to prevent any customer, program or employee data from being compromised.  Lockheed is one of the private-sector firms that would likely be considered core critical infrastructure and subject to the government's cybersecurity requirements under White House-proposed legislation, reports The Hill.

Federal Cloud Transition Will Save $5 Billion Yearly, CIO Says —Transitioning about one-fourth of the government's $80 billion information technology enterprise to the cloud will save at least $5 billion annually, federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Kundra stressed in an interview that $5 billion is the minimum in projected savings from the cloud move and said a more definitive figure would have to wait for procurements on the various transitions to be finalized, said Nextgov.com.