Election Security & Threat Intelligence Programs
• In early 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) halted funding (~$10 million/year) to the Center for Internet Security’s Elections Infrastructure ISAC and Multi-State ISAC, halting vital cyber threat intelligence sharing with state and local election officials   .
• CISA also paused all election-security work, placed over a dozen staff on leave, and disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence in U.S. elections .
2. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB)
• The bipartisan CSRB—a body created under Biden’s Executive Order 14028 in 2022 to investigate major cyber incidents like the Salt Typhoon hack—was disbanded in January 2025, and all its members were fired .
3. CISA’s Internal Cuts & Layoffs
• The administration fired over 130 CISA employees, including those on probation as well as teams handling red teaming and cyber incident response  .
• It also ended CISA’s Mobile App Vetting program, which assessed the safety of apps used on government devices .
4. Rollback of Biden/Obama Cyber Measures via EO
• In June 2025, Trump signed a new Executive Order rolling back parts of former EOs (Biden’s 14144, Obama’s 13694). It narrowed sanctions authority to only foreign cyber actors, retracted mandates on post-quantum encryption, AI-enhanced cyber defense pilots, secure software attestations, and BGP/email encryption standards .
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📉 What This Means for Cyber Protection
• Election systems now lack centralized, federal-level guardrails and threat monitoring—raising concern of vulnerabilities to foreign interference .
• Disbanding CSRB removes an essential mechanism for learning from major cyber incidents and disseminating best practices .
• CISA downsizing weakens the overall U.S. cyber defense posture, reducing capacity to detect/respond to foreign cyberattacks on critical infrastructure .
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