Under Trump, American cyber defense is losing its mind

When I walk into Jen Easterly's office on a beautiful January day in Arlington, Virginia, I'm greeted by a giant shark head lurking on the floor. I instantly spot a Rubiks Cubean Easterly brand emblazoned with the logo of the organization she has led for three and a half years, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which President Donald Trump created during his first term.

Easterly, 56, jumps up to greet me. The first thing that strikes me is his denim pants, which have a dragon on one leg and a snake on the other. She then launches into updates on CISA's Secure Our World animated video series and, in the same breath, laments that she hasn't had time to take a private guitar lesson in weeks. Apparently a normal work day for her, with one exception. As of Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, Easterly's time at CISA would be over. Trump had fired the agency's first director, Chris Krebs, after CISA refused to question the integrity of the 2020 election, and Easterly now says he was not asked to stay. Rumors are circulating that CISA's programs, or even the entire agency, could soon find themselves on Trump's chopping block.

The timing couldn't be worse for the country to lose its top cybersecurity cop. Last year, a Beijing-linked group called Salt Typhoon spent months ransacking U.S. telecommunications and siphoning off call logs, recordings, text messages and even potentially location data. Many experts have called it the largest hack in U.S. telecommunications history. Easterly and his agency unknowingly detected Salt Typhoon activity in federal networks early last year, warning signs that ultimately hastened the collapse of the espionage campaign.

The work to ban Chinese spies from victim networks is not finished, but the walls are already closing in on CISA. Trump's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, told a Senate committee last week that CISA needs to be smaller and more nimble. And a day after the inauguration, all members of the cybersecurity review board who had been appointed by Easterly and who were actively investigating the Salt Typhoon breaches were fired.

When Easterly officially became the agency's second director, in 2021, the government was still reeling from another blockbuster hack, SolarWinds. Kremlin-backed intruders had compromised software widely used to infiltrate the networks of U.S. agencies and other targets. Helping American institutions defend themselves has become an even more urgent and daunting project. CISA does not enforce laws or collect intelligence; its job is to evangelize digital security measures and offer free services, so institutions can see what they need to do to avoid getting hacked or, more realistically, less seriously hacked. Easterly set to work building relationships within the federal government and with state and local officials, business executives and utility managers. In crises such as the Salt Typhoon campaign, these relationships are crucial to quickly containing the damage.

It takes a determined, and perhaps charismatic, person to build relationships with such a diverse group of people. Easterly has the experience: she worked in the military (with multiple deployments), at the National Security Agency and the National Security Council under Barack Obama, and spent nearly five years in charge of global cybersecurity from Morgan Stanley. She also helped create U.S. Cyber ​​Command within the Department of Defense. But somehow she relaxes. To break the ice, and probably to make a good impression, Easterly leaned on her passions while in office, cubing and scrambling with utility executives and operators across the country. And, yes, there's his eclectic high-fashion style (by cybersecurity standards, anyway) mixed with bellbottoms and Birkenstocks, but also his quiet, intense obsession with trying to solve the puzzle what is digital defense.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity, combining on- and off-camera portions. Check out WIRED's YouTube channel for the video.

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