Dive Brief:
- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is reaching out to probationary workers who were terminated over the past two months following a court ruling to reinstate fired staffers at 18 agencies.
- A U.S. District Court judge granted a motion for a temporary restraining order Thursday in Maryland v. the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A group of 20 states and the District of Columbia filed suit earlier this month alleging the cuts were illegal and without proper notice.
- CISA is asking probationary workers who were cut after Jan. 20 to notify the agency. If they are found to fall within the court order, they will be reinstated as of March 17, according to a post on the agency website. Those workers will be placed on administrative leave, which is a paid, non-duty employment status.
Dive Insight:
The CISA outreach marks an abrupt reversal of a controversial policy to enact massive cuts within the federal workforce since the Trump administration took office.
Administration officials have said the cuts were necessary to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of federal funds However, critics have accused the administration of making wholesale cuts that lack any strategic planning or analysis and have disrupted critical services, in some cases placing health, safety and even national security at risk.
CISA slashed about 130 workers in mid-February as part of a round of 400 cuts at the Department of Homeland Security. Other top officials have left the agency, dating back to the final weeks of the Biden administration; the Cyber Safety Review Board, which has investigated several major attacks or software vulnerabilities impacting the U.S., was disbanded in January.
Rob Joyce, the former cybersecurity director at the National Security Agency, testified before a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party that drastic job cuts at several federal agencies would undermine the ability of the U.S. to counter espionage and other malicious activities from foreign adversaries.
Johanna Yang, a research and editorial associate at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, welcomed the restoration of the employees at CISA,** but noted that because former staffers are still not being allowed to report to work, “the asinine nature of the cuts still rings true.”
Yang said many of the probationary employees were originally hired through the DHS Cyber Talent Management System, a program Congress created to recruit and develop specialized expertise in cyber, including vulnerability analysts and world-class threat hunters.
“The necessity is absolutely there, and they need to be able to get back to work as soon as possible,” said Yang.
Attorney Amy Mushahwar, chair of the data, privacy and cybersecurity practice at Lowenstein Sandler, said private-sector organizations heavily depend on key services CISA provides.
“It is incredibly important for CISA to be able to perform threat analysis and vulnerability alerting capabilities,” Mushahwar told Cybersecurity Dive via email. “Industry depends on CISA’s threat information and vulnerability profiles for a key component of what it needs to fight attacks.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking member on the Committee on Homeland Security, on Monday criticized the administration’s plans to sideline the reinstated workers.
“Firing cybersecurity personnel, then being forced to rehire them only because of a court order, and then immediately sidelining them, is not only idiotic and wasteful, it sends a message to our adversaries that it’s open season on our networks and infrastructure,” Thompson said in a statement. “Clearly, China or Russia would never haphazardly cut their cyber workforce.”
A hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for March 26 in Baltimore.
