Board firings, loyalty tests thin out U.S. government's cyber bench
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President Trump and his team spent their first week back in office wiping nearly all of the government's cybersecurity and surveillance advisers from its roster.
Why it matters: The pool of experts left to help new Trump officials and remaining agency staffers respond to major cyber incidents is shrinking.
Driving the news: The Department of Homeland Security terminated all members of its advisory boards, including the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) and the AI Safety and Security Board.
- The White House also asked all three Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to hand in their resignations Thursday or face termination.
Between the lines: Trump has yet to make key cyber hires, and his team hasn't said much about what the administration's cybersecurity agenda is this time around — aside from vague promises for increased cyber offense.
- The dearth of information, paired with this week's committee firings, has left companies and policy experts grasping at straws.
The intrigue: Trump's penchant for loyalism is further diminishing the number of available people to backfill these advisory boards or take key roles.
- The administration has been especially wary of not only anyone who has voted Democratic, but also of conservatives who have ever been "never Trump"-ers or supported his political opponents.
- The administration will likely lean heavily on people "who have never really commented publicly about their politics and never made a donation to ActBlue," Katie Moussouris, CEO and founder of Luta Security, told Axios.
Yes, but: Most staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the National Cyber Director are still on payroll — and each of those offices has an acting leader.
- Cyber leaders in the intelligence community are also still at their posts.
Zoom in: Any new DHS advisory board members won't be able to just pick up where they left off — that's a problem especially for the CSRB, which was investigating the Salt Typhoon telco intrusions.
- A CSRB member who was terminated this week told Axios it took the relatively new entity a few years to nail down its investigation process.
- While that member said the board was in the early stages of the review, Moussouris — a former CSRB member who stepped down last spring — said that new members will likely have to start from scratch.
- "There will be notes from the interviews, but in my experience, you had to actually be present in the interviews to get the full context of what was being said in order to turn it into a report," Moussouris said.
What we're watching: Once the Senate (most likely) confirms Kristi Noem's DHS secretary nomination, expect to see the dominos fall into place for key CISA picks.
