During the first few months of the new Trump administration, the White House slashed cybersecurity budgets, staff, and initiatives. And some, including cybersecurity experts and legislators, are not happy about it.
One of them is Colin Ahern, the chief cyber officer for the state of New York. In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Ahern said that both he and New York Governor Kathy Hochul are worried that the Trump administration’s cuts to cybersecurity are putting the country at risk.
“We work with the federal government day in and day out. We need and want the federal government to be effective,” Ahern told TechCrunch. “I think it’s no secret that we are concerned about some of the things — many of the things, in fact — that we’re seeing with the ‘Big Ugly Bill,’ with the rescissions that just passed,” said Ahern, referring to Trump’s flagship budget that passed in early July.
Trump’s cybersecurity cuts have been wide ranging and far reaching.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has fired over a hundred employees at CISA, some of whom the government had to call back after a court ruling reversed the decision. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut cybersecurity spending across federal agencies by more than $1.2 billion, including cutting CISA’s budget by $135 million, all the while earmarking $1 billion over the next four years for offensive cyber operations for overseas hacking operations.
Meanwhile, The White House’s nomination for national cyber director was criticized for his lack of prior experience in the field, and, the U.S. Department of Education suspended a cybersecurity support initiative for K-12 schools.
“Everybody wants a federal government that has significant capabilities to deter our adversaries that is resilient against cyberattacks and other attacks from our enemies,” Ahern told TechCrunch. “Like we’ve said publicly, we do think that what’s happening in Washington is putting those things at risk.”
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While the U.S. federal government shoulders much of the responsibility for the country’s cybersecurity, individual states share a significant mandate to secure their own networks, state organizations like public schools, as well as those of critical infrastructure, such as water utilities. But some of the funding for that comes from Washington.
Earlier this month, Hochul wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to ask for funding available under the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), which provides state and local agencies with funds to improve security both in the real world and online.
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