Federal cyber teams overwhelmed amid workforce disruptions

• "Because they came in so lightning fast and so hard — guns a-blazing — some people are afraid," a former federal cyber official told Axios, requesting anonymity to avoid retaliation.

The big picture: Even before the current stress, recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent was a persistent challenge due to high burnout rates and a cyber labor shortage.

• 53% of the world's chief information security officers experienced or witnessed burnout in the year prior, according to a 2024 Proofpoint survey.

Driving the news: The Trump administration began mass firings of federal employees this week after a judge allowed its "buyout" program to move forward.

• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency placed members of its election security and resilience division on leave last week, according to Politico.
• NPR reported that General Services Administration employees are now concerned about workplace surveillance, including the use of keylogger software and other monitoring tools. (GSA said in a statement Wednesday that it has "no plans to surveil employees.")

The intrigue: Reports of Elon Musk's tech team navigating federal agencies — sometimes accessing sensitive data and deploying new code — are compounding workforce concerns.

• Some see agency cybersecurity teams as one of the last barriers preventing the Department of Government Efficiency from gaining unauthorized access to government systems. Officials have already had to step down after resisting DOGE requests.
• Security and encryption expert Bruce Schneier wrote in Foreign Policy this week that "breaches of other critical government systems are likely to follow unless federal employees stand firm on the protocols protecting national security."

Zoom in: Agency cybersecurity teams are the first line of defense when a data breach or malicious network activity is detected. Those findings are then reported back to CISA within the Department of Homeland Security.

• One employee who works for a civilian federal agency's cyber team told Axios that "people are more high-strung now than I've [ever] seen them."
• The employee's agency received the infamous "A fork in the road" email, and everyone is fearful they'll lose their jobs. That distraction, the employee warned, makes federal workers more vulnerable to phishing emails and other cyber threats.
• "A lot of this creates distractions that make a not-easy job less easy," the employee said.

• The employee requested anonymity to both protect themself and their colleagues from retaliation.

Between the lines: Federal employees with decades of service fear that pushing back against the administration — especially if asked to compromise security — could cost them their pensions and retirement benefits, the former cyber official said.

• As of the 2023 fiscal year, about 24% of the federal cyber workforce was just two years away from retirement, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
• "It's really hard, and they can't look at themselves in the mirror in the morning," the former cyber official said. "They have the welfare of their future life and their families' future life at stake — that's a big burden to place on somebody."

What we're watching: Former U.S. officials are slowly starting to speak out against the attacks on the federal workforce.

• Jen Easterly, the most recent CISA director, wrote on LinkedIn this week that it is "vital that the federal government is able to retain the warriors of America's Cyber Defense Agency in order to protect our nation."

Go deeper: Insider threats loom as Elon Musk's team gains swift government access