Jen Easterly is out as the Director of CISA. Read her final interview:
There’s a lot of unfinished business. We have made an impact through our ransomware vulnerability warning pilot and our pre-ransomware notification initiative, and I’m really proud of that, because we work on preventing somebody from having their worst day. But ransomware is still a problem. We have been laser-focused on PRC cyber actors. That will continue to be a huge problem. I’m really proud of where we are, but there’s much, much more work to be done. There are things that I think we can continue driving, that the next administration, I hope, will look at, because, frankly, cybersecurity is a national security issue.
If Project 2025 is a guide, the agency will be gutted under Trump:
“Project 2025’s recommendations—essentially because this one thing caused anger—is to just strip the agency of all of its support altogether,” he said. “And CISA’s functions go so far beyond its role in the information space in a way that would do real harm to election officials and leave them less prepared to tackle future challenges.”
In the DHS chapter of Project 2025, Cucinelli suggests gutting CISA almost entirely, moving its core responsibilities on critical infrastructure to the Department of Transportation. It’s a suggestion that Adav Noti, the executive director of the nonpartisan voting rights advocacy organization Campaign Legal Center, previously described to Democracy Docket as “absolutely bonkers.”
“It’s located at Homeland Security because the whole premise of the Department of Homeland Security is that it’s supposed to be the central resource for the protection of the nation,” Noti said. “And that the important functions shouldn’t be living out in siloed agencies.”