{"id":958,"date":"2024-11-25T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=958"},"modified":"2024-11-25T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T06:00:00","slug":"what-the-cyber-community-should-expect-from-the-trump-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=958","title":{"rendered":"What the cyber community should expect from the Trump transition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump\u2019s decisive win in this year\u2019s presidential election promises to deliver radical changes to how the US government operates.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s positions on a range of social, economic, and military issues, from immigration to human rights to the defense of Ukraine, represent significantly different postures from those of the current Biden administration and are arguably more hardline than any of the policies Trump adopted during his first administration.<\/p>\n

But experts say the incoming Trump administration\u2019s cybersecurity policies will most likely resemble traditional and predictable governance, not radical departures from the past. They expect this constancy to be true despite Trump\u2019s nomination of unconventional and inexperienced individuals\u00a0for cabinet positions that oversee significant US government cyber activities.<\/p>\n

Moreover, one main cybersecurity arm of the US government that organizations have come to depend on, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)<\/a>, will likely continue to exist, albeit\u00a0stripped<\/a>\u00a0of its relatively minor role in managing election disinformation, despite the push by some to eliminate the agency.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s\u00a0government cost-cutting effort<\/a> provides some uncertainty, but the upshot of this continued, relative normality for cybersecurity policy is that CISOs and security professionals can expect a degree of certainty and stability as the US heads into a second Trump administration.<\/p>\n

According to Adam Darrah, vice president of Intelligence at ZeroFox, the cybersecurity world can take a breather, at least for now. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any cause for concern about cybersecurity policy under Trump any more than there was under the Biden administration, which quite frankly did a nice job with cybersecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bipartisan nature of cybersecurity lends itself to continuity<\/h2>\n

Most experts with government experience predict that the next Trump administration will be characterized more by continuity than disruption regarding cybersecurity. Part of their faith stems from cybersecurity\u2019s mostly bipartisan nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think cybersecurity is a bipartisan initiative, even if it has become more politicized over time,\u201d Chris Painter, former top US cyber diplomat and senior US government official, tells CSO.<\/p>\n

Michael Daniel, CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance, agrees. Cybersecurity \u201cis not an area where there\u2019s a lot of bipartisan disagreement,\u201d he says. \u201cBased on [Trump\u2019s] track record from the first term, I don\u2019t think there will be a huge divergence from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look back at the first Trump administration\u2019s work on cybersecurity, the cyber policies that CISA pursued then were similar to the ones that the Obama administration pursued, which were similar to the ones that were more evolutionary off the ones the Bush administration had pursued,\u201d Daniel adds. \u201cThere was a lot of continuity in there.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Daniel and dozens of other former government officials across five administrations participated in an effort by the McCrary Institute at Auburn University to develop 40 cybersecurity recommendations that constitute a\u00a0plan of action<\/a>\u00a0for the winning party\u2019s presidential transition task force.<\/p>\n

Obama White House veteran Daniel says, \u201cIf you look at things like the McCrary Institute report, that was very bipartisan and had everybody from me to [Trump homeland security advisor and current head of Trinity Cyber] Tom Bossert and [George W. Bush homeland security advisor and current head of the McCrary Institute] Frank Cilluffo and [former assistant secretary of homeland security for cyber under Trump] Matt Hayden and other people from both sides of the aisle. While there were some disagreements, we quickly came to a consensus on what needed to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and one of the leaders behind the McCrary Institute report, tells CSO: \u201cIf you had any other issue, such as union labor versus management contracting, there\u2019d be a zillion differences. But with cyber, there\u2019s a lot of agreement. Not that anyone gets anything done, but there\u2019s agreement on what ought to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelligence operations likely to remain unaffected despite nominees<\/h2>\n

Trump\u2019s pick for the Director of National Intelligence has raised concerns in the intelligence community<\/a>, but several former government officials say the US intel establishment will probably carry on as it always has.<\/p>\n

One frequently repeated concern is the danger this and other Trump picks, including his Homeland Security choice<\/a>, pose to the solid intel relationships among the Five Eyes partners, which include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. \u201cA consideration that I would be concerned about is how you maintain some of those relationships and the sharing and other things when that relies on trust,\u201d Daniel says.<\/p>\n

But most experts say bureaucratic momentum and enduringly good relationships among analysts will keep US intel alliances in good shape. \u201cWhat you\u2019re still going to find is the rank and file, which includes very powerful capabilities, are still going to collaborate,\u201d David Brumley, CEO of Mayhem Security, tells CSO. \u201cWe\u2019re still going to have the Five Eyes. We\u2019re still going to share information about the normal targets. Where we\u2019re going to see big changes on this is at the higher levels. People are going to be less trustworthy about sharing important information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is likely to be more disruptive,\u201d Jim Lewis, SVP and director of the CSIS technology and public policy program, tells CSO. \u201cBut the Five Eyes relationship is so longstanding that you just can\u2019t unwind it. So, Five Eyes is unlikely to change as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZeroFox\u2019s Darrah, who served as a CIA analyst under both the Obama and Trump administrations, is a big believer in the US intel system. \u201cThe relationship with the Five Eyes specifically is so robust and healthy that it would take a radical shift in policy to change things,\u201d he tells CSO.<\/p>\n

CISA will likely survive<\/h2>\n

One of the biggest cybersecurity fears about a Trump presidential victory is that he would eliminate DHS and CISA, as advocated in a\u00a0presidential blueprint<\/a>\u00a0drawn up by the Heritage Foundation. And although one\u00a0Trump-friendly Senator<\/a>\u00a0is still advocating for CISA\u2019s dissolution, it appears unlikely that will happen.<\/p>\n

One factor helping to ensure CISA\u2019s continued existence is the enormous challenge of deporting millions of immigrants, a key plank of Trump\u2019s campaign platform. DHS, the agency housing CISA, will almost certainly be responsible for much of the planning for this unprecedented and costly task.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven this administration\u2019s focus on anti-immigrant activity, I suspect that is where most of the DHS secretary\u2019s focus will be,\u201d Daniel says. \u201cI\u2019m going to be much more interested to see who they name as an undersecretary and who they name as the head of CISA in terms of where the cyber policy might be going. I will be more interested in those names because I find it difficult to believe that the Homeland Security secretary will spend much time on those cybersecurity issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

One notion under Project 2025 was to break up CISA and put whatever cybersecurity parts that were left inside the Department of Transportation. \u201cThe political calories you would have to expend to move CISA over somewhere else, it\u2019s just not worth the candle,\u201d says Daniel. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to imagine that would be a high priority for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s decisive win in this year\u2019s presidential election promises to deliver radical changes to how the US government operates. Trump\u2019s positions on a range of social, economic, and military issues, from immigration to human rights to the defense of Ukraine, represent significantly different postures from those of the current Biden administration and are arguably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}