On Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as the new U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security told members of several advisory

Trump administration fires members of cybersecurity review board in ‘horribly shortsighted’ decision

submited by

Style Pass

2025-01-24 17:30:05

On Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as the new U.S. president, the Department of Homeland Security told members of several advisory committees that they were effectively fired.

Among the committees impacted is the Cyber Safety Review Board, or CSRB, according to sources familiar with the board who spoke to TechCrunch, as well as reporting by other news outlets. The CSRB was made up of both private sector and government cybersecurity experts.

One person familiar with the CSRB, who received the letter informing them that their membership in the CSRB was being terminated, criticized the decision.

“Shutting down all DHS advisory boards without consideration of the impact was horribly shortsighted,” the person, who asked to remain anonymous, told TechCrunch. “Stopping the CSRB review when China has ongoing cyberattacks into our critical infrastructure is a dangerous blunder. We need to learn from Salt Typhoon and protect ourselves better. The fact this isn’t a priority for Trump is telling.”

The person was referring to the CSRB’s review of the devastating recent breaches at several telecoms in the U.S., allegedly carried out by Chinese government hackers.