Donald Trump has nominated Sean Plankey to be director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), replacing Jen Easterly, who left as CISA’s chief on Jan. 20.
A graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Plankey served during the first Trump administration as principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Cybersecurity, Energy, Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) office.
Before that, he served on the National Security Council as the maritime and Pacific cybersecurity policy director and worked as deputy CIO for US Navy Intelligence. During his 13 years as an officer in the Coast Guard, he was the first officer deployed to Afghanistan to conduct offensive cyber operations.
Since leaving the government, Plankey has held top roles in the private sector, most recently as the global head of cybersecurity software for multinational insurance brokerage WTW.
Cybersecurity policy leaders hail Plankey’s nomination
Cybersecurity policy pros have widely applauded Plankey’s nomination. Chris Krebs, CISA’s first director and now chief intelligence and public policy officer at SentinelOne, tells CSO that “Sean is a great pick for CISA director, based on my experience working with him in the last Trump administration in his stints at the National Security Council and Department of Energy.”
“He’s a veteran with deep technical chops, combined with practical private sector experience across important infrastructure sectors,” Krebs added. “His straightforward leadership approach is just right for CISA, and I hope the Senate confirms him quickly.”
Mark Montgomery, former executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and now a cybersecurity leader at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tells CSO that Plankey is a “great hire” and “is just what CISA will need as we defend against an increasingly aggressive nation-state adversary in China.”
Former Obama administration cybersecurity official Ari Schwartz, who now leads the Cybersecurity Coalition, a group of leading cybersecurity companies dedicated to educating policymakers on cybersecurity issues, said in a statement that the “CISA director plays a key role in leading the federal government’s cybersecurity efforts, and we valued Mr. Plankey’s expertise and leadership during President Trump’s first term. We’re excited for what’s next.”
Plankey’s nomination is a significant development that rounds out Trump’s cybersecurity leadership team. It follows Trump’s nomination of cybersecurity newcomer Sean Cairncross to the White House national cyber director and CISA’s hiring of well-respected cybersecurity veteran Karen Evans to be the executive assistant director for cybersecurity.
Plankey’s potential impact on CISA’s staff and spending cuts
CISA has long been a target of Republicans, primarily due to the minimal amount of now-discontinued work the agency conducted on misinformation efforts. It has also experienced heavy staff and spending cuts spurred by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative.
Over the past seven weeks, CISA has endured at least three rounds of staff cuts. In early February, CISA laid off 130 cybersecurity professionals. Around the same time, CISA fired at least a dozen election-related disinformation workers. Earlier this week, news broke that CISA laid off more than 100 red team workers when the DOGE team suspended the government contracts they worked on.
CISA has also cut funding for two key initiatives, the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC).
It’s unclear whether CISA will implement further funding cuts or whether the DOGE team plans further layoffs at CISA. The speed, fear, and confusion surrounding DOGE’s work have sparked a PR crisis for the Trump administration.
Reports suggest that DOGE may be wrapping up its mass government firings to shift into developing digital tools for the government. However, other reports contradict the notion of a DOGE pivot and say that Musk was itching for a now-averted government shutdown to make more firings easier to accomplish.
Whatever may happen, Plankey’s nomination and assured Senate approval might help insulate CISA from further DOGE or funding cuts. “I believe getting permanent leadership in place will stabilize CISA and allow clear lines of operation to be established and resourced,” Defense of Democracies’ Montgomery tells CSO.
Former CISA deputy director Nitin Natarajan believes that Plankey might help, at a minimum, by making any further cuts more surgical than they have been. “Having a permanent director who is closer to the work and has a history in this space would allow for a more analytic and mission-focused approach to further cuts,” Natarajan tells CSO.
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