CISA steps into the executive director position after a difficult year in the job

This week it was said that The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is in troubleafter a year of cuts, layoffs, and layoffs under the Trump administration. Now the agency has replaced its chief executive, a CISA spokesperson tells TechCrunch.

Madhu Gottumukkala’s move to become director general of CISA, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security that oversees cybersecurity and technology across the federal government, comes after a difficult year as the agency’s chief executive.

Gottumukkala struggled to lead the organization during his tenure as director and he started it security headincluding uploading sensitive government documents to ChatGPT, according to reports. The employees of the organization were cut by a third. Gottumukkala also says that he failed a counterintelligence polygraph he took it to inspect classified documents, and suspended several officials, including the agency’s then chief of security.

Before being appointed to CISA as deputy director, Gottumukkala was South Dakota’s chief technology officer under former governor and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

ABC news he was the first to talk about Gottumukkala’s departure.

In a statement shared by TechCrunch on Friday, CISA spokeswoman Marci McCarthy said Gottumukkala did an “amazing job.” McCarthy told TechCrunch that Nick Andersen will replace Gottumukkala as the new director of CISA, and that Gottumukkala has moved to a new position as director of strategic planning in the Department of Homeland Security, which houses CISA.

Before being appointed managing director of CISA, Andersen already sent as the head of an organization that oversees its cyber security sector.

The agency has not had a permanent Senate director since Trump returned to office.

McCarthy said the Trump administration has nominated Sean Plankey to be the agency’s permanent director, which requires a majority vote to be approved in the US Senate.

White House he also appointed Plankey to lead CISA in Januaryafter Sen. Ron Wyden last year blocked Plankey’s appointment until the agency agreed to release an anonymous report detailing cyber security flaws at the phone and telecommunications giants. Wyden demanded that the report be released after hundreds of hacks targeting the US and other countries’ mobile and internet providers by a Chinese group known as Salt Typhoon. The Senate scheduled Plankey’s hearing on the election.

nextgov report Thursday that CISA lost another senior executive, Bob Costello, the agency’s chief information officer who oversees IT systems and data policies. The report said Gottumukkala tried to transfer Costello but was blocked by unnamed candidates.

CISA spokesperson McCarthy would not comment on Costello’s departure when contacted by TechCrunch, but did not deny the report.