Digital Government Services Discussion

Brittany,

Digital government services, formerly known as e-Government services, is the government’s use of internet to interact with the public. This relationship includes the provision of government services and information. The digital government platform is also used to standardize government practices and increase efficiency (IGI Global, 2019).

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is an organization that audits cloud services for government organizations. To enable the use of cloud services FedRAMP provides a standard of contract languages and security requirements, security control assessment guides, a Joint Authorization Board (JAB) that authorizes cloud services packages, and past authorized packages that can be utilized (FedRAMP PMO, 2014). FedRAMP is used to deliver digital services via cloud.gov. The cloud.gov/FedRAMP service aids in securing systems by monitoring and controlling 269 of the 325 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) security controls (Gustafson, Hupp, Mogilefsky, & Slack, 2017).

When attempting to improve privacy and security a valuable resource is the Federal Chief Information (CIO) Council’s “Digital Services Playbook” (n.d.). Play 11 of the Digital Services Playbook, “Manage security and privacy through reusable processes” provides a checklist for cybersecurity analysts that outlines auditing current practices in attempt to streamline processes. A couple of key questions are provided for security engineers to go over to further outline current security settings so that current system weaknesses can be identified (Federal CIO Council, n.d.).