Leidos has been recognized for its innovation, leadership and performance as Cisco's business partner for federal contracting efforts in defense and intelligence markets. Leidos said Friday it was named Federal Breakaway Partner of the Year as part of the Cisco Partner Summit Global awards, a program that recognizes the outcome-focused programs, innovative processes, sales approaches and effective system architecture of top-performing Cisco partners.

More than 130 countries have privacy laws in place and a new Cisco report has found that 79 percent of security professionals said they believe these laws meant to hold organizations and governments accountable for their data management have had a positive impact. Cisco surveyed more than 4,400 security professionals from 25 countries in summer 2020 for the Data Privacy Benchmark Study and found that 93 percent of organizations said their privacy teams played a key role in helping them respond to COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges, including the shift to telework and implementation of controls on the use and access of shared personal information.

Andy Stewart, a senior federal strategist at Cisco, wrote about the Department of Defense“™s Cybersecurity Maturity Level Certification framework and how it helps deliver trust throughout the entire supply chain and drive change across the defense industrial base to protect the government“™s data and technology used to support military operations.

Deloitte and Cisco have offered next-generation contact center technologies to help agencies address the surge in demand for government services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Rethinking the customer experience and integrating automation and virtual assistants should be part of the long-term solution for every government," said Marc Mancher, principal at Deloitte Consulting.

Marc Mancher, a principal at Deloitte Consulting, and Alan Balutis, a senior director of North American public sector at Cisco Systems' business solutions group, have said that agencies should integrate artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies with digital call centers to continuously deliver information and services to the public during the coronavirus pandemic or national emergencies.

AT&T and Cisco will collaborate to help enterprise customers increase visibility into internet of things devices across a network as part of an extended partnership between the two companies.

Cisco has obtained Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program certification for Webex for Government, an application designed to unify messaging, calling and virtual meetings into one platform.

Cisco has partnered with the city of Dallas and New York-based digital services firm Presidio to install information technology infrastructure in public areas to provide internet connectivity to underserved communities.

John Stewart, former senior vice president and chief security and trust officer at Cisco, has been appointed chairman of the board of directors of Vienna, Va.-based data security technology provider CyVolve.

Alan Balutis, a Distinguished Fellow and senior director for North American public sector for Cisco Systems' global strategy and consulting arm, wrote in a FedScoop article published Friday the lack of authority of agency chief information officers could be one of the reasons why agencies are slow to transition to the General Services Administration's $50B Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions telecommunications contract. 

Cisco will offer $2.5B in financing through a new program to provide customers and partners access to technology platforms needed to ensure business continuity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Business Resiliency Program will help clients manage their cash flow during the crisis by allowing them to defer 95 percent of the cost of a new Cisco hardware, software or service until January 2021, the company said Tuesday.

Matt Mandrgoc, former lead at Extreme Networks' U.S. federal, state and local government and education segments, has been appointed head of Zoom Video Communications' U.S. federal team.