Jen Easterly, head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is leaving the agency after more than three years at the helm.
NextGov, which first reported the departure, said Easterly and Nitin Natarajan, the agency's deputy director, will leave CISA on January 20, when the new Trump administration takes office, citing sources.
CISA spokesperson Antonio Soliz confirmed the executive's resignation in an email to TechCrunch. “All appointees of the Biden administration will leave their positions by the inauguration of the new administration at noon on January 20th,” Soliz said.
Easterly will be the second director to lead CISA since its founding in 2018. Shortly after taking office, the Biden administration nominated Easterly to head the Cybersecurity Agency in April 2021, filling an eight-month vacancy left after then-President Trump fired the agency's director. The first director, Chris Krebs, won the award for publicly debunking President Trump's false claims that the 2020 US election was fraudulent.
During Easterly's tenure at CISA, the Cybersecurity Agency pioneered new initiatives aimed at encouraging device manufacturers to protect their products and technology by default, and made the broader industry more aware of cybersecurity risks. He helped protect the U.S. government from Russia while continuing to educate and inform the United States. Hacking targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and supporting Chinese hacking groups.
CISA was also key in supporting the Ukrainian government against a full-scale, large-scale Russian military invasion in 2022, including a cyber attack.
Prior to CISA, Mr. Easterly was head of cybersecurity at Morgan Stanley and previously held several senior positions in the U.S. Army, National Security Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command.
The Trump administration's transition team has not yet announced who it will select to lead CISA after January 20th.
January 2024 photo of CISA Director Jen Easterly with several prominent hackers and security researchers, including Madge Carhart and Leslie Carhart. Image credit: Jen Easterly / X
Source link