The Senate on Monday confirmed Jen Easterly as Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The vote was unanimous.
President Biden announces Easterly’s nomination in early April. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced Easterly’s nomination on June 16.
“I congratulate Jen Easterly on her confirmation as Director of CISA,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “Jen is a brilliant cybersecurity expert and a proven leader with a career spanning military service, civil service, and the private sector. I am proud to welcome her to the DHS team and look forward to working together to protect our country from urgency cybersecurity and physical threats.”
“I thank Brandon Wales for serving as Acting Director of CISA. Brandon’s steadfast, superb leadership has been invaluable, especially as CISA continues to respond to rising cybersecurity incidents impacting businesses, government, communities, and critical infrastructure across our nation.”
Prior to her confirmation, Easterly served as head of firm resilience for Morgan Stanley. A graduate of West Point, she obtained her master’s degree at Oxford University before joining the Army as an intelligence officer. She served in various command and staff positions globally, including establishing the Army’s first ever cyber operations unit and the design and development of the U.S. Cyber Command, one of the eleven unified combatant comments of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Upon her Army retirement in 2011, she joined the National Security Agency as Deputy for Counterterrorism and served in its Tailored Access Operations unit. Finally, she served on President Obama’s National Security Council staff as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism before joining Morgan Stanley.
Easterly is the second Senate-confirmed Director of CISA since Congress created the agency from DHS’s existing cyber wing in November 2018. Its activities are a continuation of the DHS’s National Protection and Programs Directorate. CISA, which employs roughly 2,500, is responsible for protecting civilian federal networks and offering security guidance to critical infrastructure operators, which includes the U.S. chicken industry, as well as states and local governments.
The DoD maintains its own separate cybersecurity operations.
Congress recently expanded CISA’s authorities, including the ability to proactively search for intrusions in government networks and heightening its intergovernmental participation in information sharing and collaboration.
President Biden has also nominated Chris Inglis to be the first ever National Cyber Director, a White House position designed to coordinate the U.S. government’s various federal agencies that share jurisdiction over cybersecurity activities and policy. The Senate has not yet confirmed Inglis.
