Deafening Silence from the Cybersecurity Industry

Summary

Chris Krebs, former CISA Director, became a symbol of truth in cybersecurity after affirming the ... More integrity of the 2020 election—and paying the price for it.Getty Images In the world of cybersecurity, where truth is paramount and trust is everything, silence can be louder than an alarm. When President Trump issed an Executive Order targeting Chris Krebs—a respected cybersecurity leader and the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—the cybersecurity industry should have responded with a unified voice of outrage and support. But instead, it largely whispered… or worse, said nothing at all. This moment is not just about Krebs. It’s a constitutional stress test. A moral gut check. And the cybersecurity industry is failing it. What Happened in 2020? Chris Krebs isn’t a political agitator. His role and actions in 2020 were not partisan. He was Trump’s own appointee to lead CISA, the agency charged with protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure, including elections. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Krebs and his team worked tirelessly with state and local election officials to safeguard systems against foreign interference and domestic cyber threats. When the votes were counted and no credible evidence of widespread fraud emerged—despite a tidal wave of disinformation—CISA issued a joint statement declaring the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.” Over 60 lawsuits attempting to challenge the results were dismissed across the country—primarily due to a complete lack of evidence to support the claims. Many of those decisions came from Republican-appointed judges. The facts were clear. But truth has become a political liability. For doing his job—and doing it well—Krebs was fired via tweet. And now, years later, he has been further targeted by an Executive Order that effectively seeks to blacklist him, his employer, and his professional associates. The message is unmistakable: disloyalty to the nar...