The new Trump administration has terminated all memberships of advisory committees that report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“In alignment with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources & ensuring that DHS activities prioritise our national security, I am directing the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately,” Acting Secretary Benjamine C. Huffman commented in a Jan. 20, 2025, memo.
Critical Mission
“Future committee activities will be focused solely on advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland & support DHS’s strategic priorities.”
This includes members of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), which last year issued a scathing report excoriating Microsoft for a “cascade” of avoidable errors that led to its infrastructure being abused by a China-based nation-state group called Storm-0558 to breach dozens of organisations in July 2023.
In July 2022, it published its findings into the vulnerabilities associated with the Apache Log4j library, & the steps taken to mitigate them. It also described the Log4Shell flaw as an endemic weakness that will continue to plague organisations for years.
Investigatory Body
Then in Aug. 2023, the board examined the intrusions linked to the LAPSUS$ cybercrime group, calling out its “effectiveness, speed, creativity, & boldness” & its ability to weaponize a “playbook of effective techniques.”
CSRB was established in Feb. 2022 as a public-private initiative to assess significant cybersecurity events, & provide recommendations on improving cybersecurity & incident response practices. It’s currently not clear how the investigatory body will be restructured.
According to independent security journalist Eric Geller, the CSRB is said to have been in the middle of an investigation into a recent spate of cyber-attacks targeting telecom providers in the US. The activity has been linked to a Chinese hacking group named Salt Typhoon.
Disbanded
Some of the other advisory boards that have been disbanded include the Artificial Intelligence Safety & Security Board, Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, National Infrastructure Advisory Council, & the USSS Cyber Investigations Advisory Board.
“This is a massive gift to the Chinese spies who targeted top political figures,” US Senator Ron Wyden said in a post on Bluesky. “Killing the board that pressured Microsoft to up its cybersecurity looks for all the world like payback for Microsoft’s million-dollar gift to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.”
US President Donald Trump has also revoked the Biden administration’s executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) safety, which, among other things, advocated for the safe, secure, & trustworthy development & use of the technology.
