IT security authority CISA in emergency operation

Of the 2341 employees at the US cybersecurity authority CISA, 888 currently have to work without pay. The authority is thus ensuring emergency operations.

The trigger is a government shutdown in the US after Democrats and Republicans could not agree on conditions for further funding of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Department of Homeland Security. This is due to disputes over the conduct of officials from the police and customs authority United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Due to ongoing criticism of ICE operations, the French IT consulting firm Capgemini recently divested its US subsidiary.

DHS shutdown affects IT security authority

As part of the DHS shutdown, the funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has also been temporarily suspended after the DHS had to cease operations on Friday evening. It is unclear how many CISA employees will be furloughed. However, the acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala stated in a hearing before the US House of Representatives on the consequences of a DHS shutdown that CISA plans to treat 888 of the 2341 employees as an exception. These employees must work without pay during the shutdown. Their deployment is strictly limited to activities that protect life and property.

"A shutdown forces many of our frontline cybersecurity experts and threat hunters to work without pay – at a time when nation-states and criminal organizations are intensifying their efforts to exploit vulnerabilities in critical systems that Americans rely on, placing our national defense under unprecedented strain," Gottumukkala said in the hearing.

Possible impacts include the global overview of the IT security situation. There have been no new entries in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (KEV) since Friday. It is of course possible that no newly exploited vulnerabilities have become known since then. However, the shutdown could mean that there are simply not enough resources available for such warnings. Gottumukkala already hinted at such consequences: "This would delay the provision of cybersecurity services and capabilities to federal agencies and leave significant gaps in security programs."

CISA already had to deal with chaos shortly after the Trump administration took office last year. More than a thousand employees were terminated there. The authority lost track of who was fired and asked fired employees to report via email in mid-March.

(dmk)