{"id":199560,"date":"2026-03-26T22:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T02:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/the-nations-top-cybersecurity-agency-is-bleeding-employees\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T00:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:50:11","slug":"the-nations-top-cybersecurity-agency-is-bleeding-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/the-nations-top-cybersecurity-agency-is-bleeding-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nation\u2019s Top Cybersecurity Agency Is Bleeding Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nation\u2019s Top Cybersecurity Agency Is Bleeding Employees<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/weaponizedspaces.substack.com\/p\/the-nations-top-cybersecurity-agency<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-26 22:27:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: weaponizedspaces.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. The nation\u2019s main cybersecurity agency is operating with more than 1,000 vacant positions due to staffing losses over the past year, the agency\u2019s director said Wednesday at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is now also dealing with the impact of the government shutdown, which has left 60% of the remaining workforce furloughed or unable to work, said Acting Director Nick Andersen.The agency has also been operating without a Senate-confirmed director for more than a year.CISA\u2019s mission is to protect the systems that keep the country running \u2014 power grids, water systems, telecommunications networks, hospitals and healthcare infrastructure, election systems, and more \u2014 but Trump has targeted the agency since taking office last year, effectively gutting its work in several areas including election security.In his first few months in office, Trump cut a third of CISA\u2019s workforce and dismantled critical partnerships that the agency depends on in order to carry out its mission.With key positions still unfilled and internal instability due to uncertainty around agency priorities, what remains is an agency operating below the level required to match the threat environment.Thanks for reading Weaponized! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareAnd now, with the government shutdown affecting paychecks and further complicating employees\u2019 ability to carry out the mission, Andersen said that CISA is seeing a \u201ccontinued flow of people out the door.\u201dThe agency currently has just under 2400 employees, down from 3,300 in January 2025, said Rep. Bennie Johnson (D-MS).Although CISA is continuing its work \u2014 focusing on \u201cprotecting life and property, or functions that [are] otherwise excepted or exempted [from the shutdown]\u201d \u2014 the agency\u2019s capacity to do so \u201cis becoming exceedingly strained,\u201d Andersen said.He added that six \u201chighly technical subject matter experts\u201d from the threat hunting team resigned in a single day recently.\u201cThat\u2019s not a sustainable model going forward,\u201d he said. \u201cAt some point, the compounding risk within this dynamic threat landscape is going to cause real damage to Americans.\u201dCISA isn\u2019t the only security agency feeling the effects of the shutdown.Officials also said that, because of the time it takes to train new agents and the delays caused by the shutdown, the Transportation Safety Agency (TSA) won\u2019t be equipped to accommodate the surge of travelers in the U.S. that is anticipated ahead of the FIFA World Cup in June.According to Ha Nguyen McNeill, a senior official acting as TSA administrator, 500 TSA officers have quit due to the shutdown.On top of that, the Coast Guard has also halted many preparations for the FIFA World Cup, said Adm. Thomas Allen, Coast Guard vice commandant. He added that the Coast Guard is unable to make payments for more than 5,000 utility accounts, \u201cputting us in imminent danger of widespread shutdowns to critical infrastructure.\u201dAdditionally, funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s (FEMA\u2019s) disaster preparedness and disaster recovery programs are rapidly dwindling, and if funding is not restored soon, they will be unable to assist with many disaster recovery efforts, said Victoria Barton, FEMA\u2019s Office of External Affairs associate administrator.The agency has also had to cancel training courses in disaster preparedness and anti-terrorism preparedness, she said.All of these agencies are currently being held hostage by congressional Republicans, who are refusing to pass a new funding bill unless it also fully funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).Following the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Priddy by ICE agents earlier this year, Congress agreed to extend ICE funding through Feb. 13, but Democrats said further funding would be contingent on appropriate reforms. Those reforms have not happened, though, and Republicans have thus far refused to fund the rest of DHS while negotiations take place.If, indeed, Republicans\u2019 motivation for giving ICE more funds is to protect national security and keep Americans safe (as they claim it is), then they\u2019ve chosen to go about it in an interesting way: refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security \u2026in the name of national security. That\u2019s the kind of newspeak that even Orwell couldn\u2019t come up with.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation\u2019s Top Cybersecurity Agency Is Bleeding Employees https:\/\/weaponizedspaces.substack.com\/p\/the-nations-top-cybersecurity-agency Publish Date: 2026-03-26 22:27:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Vgt8!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe26333cc-6134-43e7-ad5e-2fb456e802f9_2322x1320.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-199560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199562,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199560\/revisions\/199562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}