{"id":7283,"date":"2025-02-11T14:08:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T20:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/cyber-risk\/cisa-election-security-staffers-on-leave"},"modified":"2025-02-11T14:08:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T20:08:33","slug":"cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2025\/02\/11\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave\/","title":{"rendered":"CISA Places Election Security Staffers on Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEWS BRIEF<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has placed 17 staffers who worked with local officials to provide training on dealing with election-related cyber threats on leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

This leave is pending an <\/span>internal review<\/a><\/span>, which will examine the staffers’ work to combat cyber threats from foreign governments, and efforts to influence US elections with disinformation campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten of the employees are regional election security specialists, specifically hired to grow field staff and election security knowledge before the <\/span>2024 election<\/a><\/span>. All 17 employees were former state or local election officials who were tasked with building relationships across 8,000 different local election jurisdictions across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other staffers that have been placed on leave include current and former members of CISA’s Election Security and Resilience team, a leave that is also pending review of the agency’s work to combat misinformation and <\/span>disinformation campaigns<\/a><\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Some elected state officials have been particularly outspoken about the benefits that CISA’s work has provided in securing election offices and mitigating cyber threats, such as Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who applauded the “boots on the ground” tactics CISA implemented, and the relationships its employees built with county clerks. <\/span><\/p>\n

“They’re teaching them and helping them check their physical security and their cyber hygiene, and that’s been extremely popular,” said Adams.<\/span><\/p>\n

For now, the reviews only heighten questions and <\/span>concerns over the future of the agency<\/a><\/span> in this second Trump administration, especially considering the lack of a replacement for <\/span>Jen Easterly as CISA director<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first Trump administration went head-to-head with CISA when the agency aimed to counter misinformation about the 2020 election, which then-president Trump and his allies deemed as “stolen” without evidence. That included the <\/span>firing of CISA Director Chris Krebs<\/a><\/span>, who called the 2020 presidential election the most secure election in American history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWS BRIEF The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-7283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-reading"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1",2560,1440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=1536%2C864&ssl=1",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=2048%2C1152&ssl=1",2048,1152,true],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1",1024,576,true],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?resize=825%2C575&ssl=1",825,575,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?resize=590%2C410&ssl=1",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Dark Reading","author_link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/author\/darkreading\/"},"category_info":"Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cisa-places-election-security-staffers-on-leave-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}