CISA Loses Another Senior Exec

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has lost another senior leader: executive director Bridget Bean departed on Wednesday. Bean, who served as the de facto agency boss for five months between former CISA director Jen Easterly's departure in January and Madhu Gottumukkala's appointment to the deputy director post last month, said she was "officially retiring from Federal service once again" in a LinkedIn post. "My time at CISA has been truly remarkable," she wrote. "Having had the privilege to serve as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of Director of CISA for 5 months has been a profound honor."

CISA's executive leadership page now lists Gottumukkala as its acting director, and the agency remains without a Senate-confirmed leader. President Trump nominated Sean Plankey to serve as the agency's director, and his nomination is scheduled for consideration (PDF) by the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today. However, his appointment still requires a full Senate vote. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has said he will continue to block Plankey's confirmation until CISA releases an unclassified report on American telecommunications networks' weak security.

At the time of her departure, Bean had spent three and a half years with CISA and more than three decades with the federal government, including a job as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's third-ranking official. Before accepting the executive director post, she was CISA's first chief integration officer. In this position, she "led the integration of the agency's operations and ensured CISA's frontline of regional staff seamlessly supported the critical infrastructure that Americans rely on every hour of every day," according to her bio on the agency's website. [...] Bean's retirement comes during a talent exodus from CISA -- and other federal government agencies -- with some folks getting fired and others taking the Trump administration's buyout offer to resign from public service. As of May 30, the heads of five of CISA's six operational divisions and six of its 10 regional offices had left the agency, and around 1,000 people, nearly one-third of its total staff, have reportedly left CISA since Trump took office.

Re: What are her qualifications

[homerbrew]

What are the qualifications for Trumps nominee, besides their unequivocal loyalty to a single person and not our constitution or laws? I am willing to be if you did just the minimal web searching you will find ALL the answers you asked.

Re: What are her qualifications

[Frank Burly]

You aren't being entirely fair. For example, the current Secretary of the Army served honorably in the Army where led a cavalry platoon and was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then he went to Yale Law School before working in private equity. Anyway, here's a video of him saying we currently have an astronaut on the moon. [realclearpolitics.com]

Detractors on the left will say he's a delusional moron, because there haven't been any any astronauts on moon for 50 years. But Trump supporters will quickly and accurately point out that we do actually have astronauts in space, which is where the moon is. No doubt up-and-comers like Secretary Driscoll and whoever replaces Ms. Bean will have risen through the ranks of Trump's Meritocracy (TM) and will have just as firm a grasp of obvious facts as the Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Defense (who was also in the armed services and has on-air television experience).

Re: What are her qualifications

[The Mighty Buzzard]

It's cute that you think that was some sort of rebuttal.

Re: What are her qualifications

[ZombieCatInABox]

"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and I still wouldn't lose any voters."

- Donald J. Trump

Re:

[ZombieCatInABox]

Yes, you seem to do that a lot. Taking pleasure in the suffering of others, that is.

Re:

[mjwx]

"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and I still wouldn't lose any voters."

- Donald J. Trump

Chances are elections in the US will become as honest and open as North Korea, so that may still be true... Both him shooting people (or ordering others to shoot people) and not losing a single vote (because he's the only one you're allowed to vote for).

Re:

[fafalone]

That may happen but it's because his supporters are already so hopelessly brainwashed and/or committed to the scam that it's true. He's a felon found liable for rape who led a coup attempt. He gained votes vs 2016. Whatever excuse for shooting someone he offered, his voters would accept, no matter how preposterous.

Re:

[CrankyFool]

Why do 30 years of government service not count as actual qualifications and, you know, work experience?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Go easy on the guy, he is applying for a DOGE job and needs to prove that he doesn't understand how anything works.

We're running up the charges...

[Arrogant-Bastard]

...and the bill will come due. The people at CISA, from the top down, have been working incredibly hard for years to get their hands around the myriad problems that we face and to make some meaningful progress on as many of them as possible. I haven't always agreed with their priorities or their analysis or their conclusions, but most of those disagreements have been minor -- and I recognize that they may have access to information that I don't.

The mass exodus of experienced talent from CISA is no doubt being greeted with cheers in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran and elsewhere. This significantly weakens the aggregate security posture of the US and it greatly impairs our ability to detect and respond to threats. I think, sadly, that it's only a matter of time until one of our adversaries decides to exploit this on a large scale, and I worry that the consequences may be dire.

Re: We're running up the charges...

[jrnvk]

I think you are giving too much credit to the actual impact of CISA. Many agencies go through major transformations in their infancy before they stabilize - this one will be no different.

As of now, it is essentially a security theater outfit filled with a bunch of people trying to pad their resumes. The real work in this field is still being done by true security professionals and private companies.

Re:

[chas.williams]

Sorry, CISA is largely ineffective. Even the government doesn't follow CISA guidelines. CISA is a watered-down version of DISA.