The Trump administration has fundamentally altered U.S. cybersecurity policy through a new executive order that explicitly shields domestic hackers from sanctions. In a sweeping rewrite of national strategy, the order narrows the scope of punitive measures from previous administrations to apply only to “foreign persons.” The White House claims the goal is to prevent the “misuse against domestic political opponents,” according to an official fact sheet.
This pivot formally reorients U.S. cyber defense priorities toward foreign adversaries, explicitly naming China as the most persistent threat, followed by Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The order mandates several technical shifts, including preparations for quantum-resistant encryption and new rules for securing the internet’s core routing infrastructure.
However, this strategic refocus on external threats is occurring amid a period of unprecedented internal turmoil. The administration is simultaneously orchestrating the systematic weakening of the nation’s primary civilian cyber defense agency while empowering a new, controversial department plagued by its own documented security failures. This raises profound questions about whether the U.S. is truly strengthening its cyber posture or merely trading established expertise for unproven and chaotic methods.
The Slow Gutting of CISA
While the White House announces its new strategy, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is weathering a catastrophic storm of budget cuts and personnel departures. The administration’s proposed 2026 budget calls for a staggering $491 million reduction to CISA’s funding.These sweeping reductions would slash nearly $150 million from cyber operations and gut funding for critical infrastructure analysis.
The proposed cut follows a workforce purge that has already driven roughly 1,000 employees out of the agency through buyouts and layoffs, according to an unnamed CISA employee cited by Cybersecurity Dive. The exodus includes the high-profile resignations of senior advisors Bob Lord and Lauren Zabierek, who were the architects of the agency’s “Secure by Design” initiative.
The relentless pressure has led critics to sound the alarm. In a piece for The Hill, retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery in March described the administration’s actions as the “gutting” of CISA, warning it “harms national security on a daily basis.”
The sentiment was echoed by Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), who criticized the proposed cuts, stating “that’s not cutting fat. That’s a death blow.” While a House Appropriations subcommittee recently advanced a funding bill with a smaller $135 million cut, the agency’s future remains precarious.
A New Watchdog with No Leash
As CISA’s role diminishes, the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), advised by Elon Musk, has aggressively expanded its influence over federal IT systems. Yet this new body’s own security practices have proven to be deeply flawed. Login credentials of Kyle Schutt, a software engineer holding dual roles at both CISA and DOGE, were found in multiple info-stealer malware leaks.
This incident is emblematic of a wider pattern of recklessness. A whistleblower from the National Labor Relations Board previously alleged that DOGE personnel facilitated a data breach after demanding that no logs be kept of their activities—a directive he called a “huge red flag.”
A DOGE software engineer wrote an AI tool to review VA contracts that “hallucinated,” incorrectly inflating contract sizes by a thousandfold. These repeated failures have led experts like former NSA hacker Jacob Williams to warn that DOGE is introducing unvetted code into federal systems, bypassing all normal security reviews.
Rewriting the Rules on AI, Quantum, and ID
Beyond the agency shake-ups, the executive order enacts several significant policy and technology mandates. It eliminates a Biden-era requirement for federal contractors to provide software security attestations, a move that, eliminates attestations entirely in favor of a more voluntary approach.
The order also removes a mandate for government-provided digital IDs, a decision that Mark Montgomery, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized ias “prioritizing questionable immigration benefits over proven cybersecurity benefits.”
On artificial intelligence, the order reframes safety policy as an alternative to what the administration calls “censorship,” aligning with a broader pushback against AI regulation. Perhaps most consequentially, the order sets an aggressive timeline for defending against next-generation threats. It directs the government to prepare for post-quantum cryptography, mandating the adoption of new encryption protocols by 2030.
According to Karl Holmqvist, CEO of LastWall, this timeline reflects what he called a “sobering reality,” adding that the quantum threat “appears closer than most technology leaders want to admit,” as he explained to SC Media.
Ultimately, the administration’s new cybersecurity framework presents a jarring contradiction. While it directs federal agencies to prepare for sophisticated, future-tense threats like quantum computing, its actions in the present are dismantling the very expertise and institutional stability required to meet them. By sidelining CISA in favor of the turbulent and unproven DOGE, the White House is gambling with national security, betting that a disruptive, top-down approach can succeed where methodical, expert-led defense has been the standard.
