Trump Fires Cyber Safety Board to Look Into Hackers Using Salt Typhoon

President Trump recently fired Chris Krebs for the second time.

During its first full day, the Trump administration fired all members of the Department of Homeland Security's advisory committees, including the members of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In recent months, at least nine telecommunications networks were breached by the Chinese state-sponsored hacker collective Salt Typhoon, which the CSRB was aggressively looking into.

The action was taken to prevent a "misuse of resources," according to a letter dated January 20 from acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Benjamine C. Huffman, who also immediately terminated all current advisory committee memberships.

The CSRB's dismissed members include a who's who of cybersecurity from firms like Sentinel One, represented by Chris Krebs, the former chief of CISA who was sacked in 2020 during the final days of the previous Trump administration. Several former Biden administration officials were also on the CSRB. It was established to "review and assess... significant cyber incidents" that affected the US government's federal executive branch as part of Biden's 2021 cybersecurity executive order.

It's unclear if the CSRB will continue to exist. A copy of the letter stated that generally speaking, fired DHS committee members are invited to reapply to DHS in the future, even though it did not specify which panels might be reassembled with new participation.

"Future committee activities will be focused solely on advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland and support DHS's strategic priorities," the letter said, before expressing gratitude to departing members for their work.