News brief: Cybersecurity weakened by government shutdown

The U.S. government shut down at 12:01 ET on Wednesday after Congress failed to reach a funding deal. Hundreds of thousands of employees across multiple federal programs have been affected -- and the effects will ripple across the cybersecurity industry.

Since the current administration took office in January, cybersecurity agencies have been under the spotlight. For example, CISA has experienced workforce and budget cuts, and the Emergency Management and Response-Information Sharing and Analysis Center has been shut down. The current shutdown will likely only exacerbate cybersecurity woes.

Government shutdowns -- and their cybersecurity impacts -- aren't unprecedented. During the 35-day 2018-19 shutdown, federal systems scans were paused, projects were delayed, NIST's online resources were unavailable, .gov domain certificates expired and contracts with third-party cybersecurity vendors were suspended, all of which left systems vulnerable to attack. The 16-day 2013 shutdown delayed the release of NIST's Cybersecurity Framework for Critical ...