The brand new Trump administration has terminated all memberships of advisory committees that report back to the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS).
“In alignment with the Division of Homeland Safety’s (DHS) dedication to eliminating the misuse of sources and making certain that DHS actions prioritize our nationwide security, I’m directing the termination of all present memberships on advisory committees inside DHS, efficient instantly,” Performing Secretary Benjamine C. Huffman mentioned in a January 20, 2025, memo.
“Future committee actions might be centered solely on advancing our crucial mission to guard the homeland and help DHS’s strategic priorities.”
This contains members of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company’s (CISA) Cyber Security Overview Board (CSRB), which final yr issued a scathing report excoriating Microsoft for a “cascade” of avoidable errors that led to its infrastructure being abused by a China-based nation-state group referred to as Storm-0558 to breach dozens of organizations in July 2023.
In July 2022, it revealed its findings into the vulnerabilities related to the Apache Log4j library, and the steps taken to mitigate them. It additionally described the Log4Shell flaw as an endemic weak spot that may proceed to plague organizations for years.
Then in August 2023, the board examined the intrusions linked to the LAPSUS$ cybercrime group, calling out its “effectiveness, pace, creativity, and boldness” and its capacity to weaponize a “playbook of efficient methods.”
CSRB was established in February 2022 as a public-private initiative to evaluate important cybersecurity occasions, and supply suggestions on enhancing cybersecurity and incident response practices. It is presently not clear how the investigatory physique might be restructured.
Based on unbiased security journalist Eric Geller, the CSRB is alleged to have been in the course of an investigation right into a latest spate of cyber assaults focusing on telecom suppliers within the U.S. The exercise has been linked to a Chinese language hacking group named Salt Storm.
Among the different advisory boards which were disbanded embody the Synthetic Intelligence Security and Safety Board, Crucial Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, Nationwide Safety Telecommunications Advisory Committee, Nationwide Infrastructure Advisory Council, and the us Cyber Investigations Advisory Board.
“It is a huge present to the Chinese language spies who focused high political figures,” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden mentioned in a put up on Bluesky. “Killing the board that pressured Microsoft to up its cybersecurity seems for all of the world like payback for Microsoft’s million greenback present to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has additionally revoked the Biden administration’s govt order on synthetic intelligence (AI) security, which, amongst different issues, advocated for the protected, safe, and reliable growth and use of the expertise.
