Another round of layoffs hits cyber defense agency

• If all of these layoffs were to affect CISA, they would account for 7% of the agency's total workforce as of the end of May.

Threat level: The CISA cuts aren't as big as those at Treasury (1,446 employees, per a court filing) or Health and Human Services (between 1,100 and 1,200 employees). But they are coming at an especially precarious time for U.S. cyber operations and are affecting an already shrunken workforce.

• About 35% of CISA's workforce (as of May) has been sent home during the government shutdown.
• Meanwhile, Congress has allowed a 10-year-old program that enabled swift cyber-threat information sharing to lapse.
• And the threat landscape is quickly adapting to the new AI-enabled world, which promises faster, more sophisticated cyberattacks against companies.

Zoom in: A DHS spokesperson said Friday that reduction-in-force notices "will be occurring at CISA."

• "During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering," the spokesperson added. "This is part of getting CISA back on mission."
• Staff within the agency's Stakeholder Engagement and Infrastructure Security divisions were among those targeted in the latest round of cuts, according to Nextgov.
• The spokesperson did not mention layoffs at any other DHS entity and did not respond to a request yesterday to clarify if CISA is the only affected DHS agency.

The big picture: CISA's workforce grew rapidly during the Biden administration, adding more than 2,200 people between July 2021 and January 2025.

• Federal agencies often struggle to hire cybersecurity talent away from the private sector, which typically offers higher salaries.

Catch up quick: About 774 CISA employees took a buyout offer earlier this year, including those who took early retirement, a source told Axios at the time.

• CISA also cut contracts in threat-hunting operations and laid off members of the election integrity unit and diversity-and-inclusion offices.

• Nearly every senior official at CISA also departed earlier this year.
• DHS has recently reassigned many CISA workers to other agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Federal Protective Service, Bloomberg reported last week.

Between the lines: CISA has become a major target of the Trump administration due to its work identifying and combatting election-related mis- and disinformation.

• Former director Chris Krebs, who ran the agency during the first Trump administration, called the 2020 election the "most secure in American history" and was subsequently fired by tweet.
• Trump directed the Department of Justice to open an investigation into Krebs earlier this year.

What to watch: Sean Plankey's nomination to become the next CISA director is still awaiting a floor vote.

• Lawmakers have also started speaking out. In a statement, House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said: "Democrats should not have put us in this position in the first place," adding that the decision to not pass the clean continuing resolution has "undermined our homeland security and the personnel who are now working without pay to uphold it."

📲 If you're a federal worker with more insights about the extent of the administration's cuts to the cyber workforce, reach out confidentially on Signal at @SamSabin.01.