News brief: CISA and partners face budget overhauls, cuts

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency -- the division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security whose mission is to "lead the national effort to understand, manage and reduce risk to our cyber and physical infrastructure" -- has faced scrutiny from the current administration, which is now acting on its pledge to downsize it, along with other government agencies.

The future of CISA was up in the air last fall when Jen Easterly, the agency's director under then-President Joe Biden, announced she would step down on President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration day in January. Easterly joined CISA in 2021 following an eight-month vacancy, after then-President Trump fired CISA's first director, Chris Krebs, in fall 2020.

Other Biden administration appointees also left CISA when Trump took office. While it isn't out of the norm to see personnel shifts during a change in leadership, the agency itself and its work have ...