Trump’s new cybersecurity agency is suffering a major setback thanks to the government shutdown

gorodenkoff/Getty  Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free _Mother Jones Daily_. Cybersecurity officials celebrated in November when

President Donald Trump launched a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security focused entirely on protecting vulnerabilities in the federal government’s computer systems. But just

over a month after the agency was established, nearly half of the staff of the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been furloughed, which could put the government

 in a compromised position for guarding against potential cyberattacks. The new CISA reorganized and rebranded an existing division of DHS, making cybersecurity a central concern for the

agency. Approximately 43 percent of CISA staff is currently furloughed, though the remaining staff is presumably on standby in case of a major cyberattack. As of last Thursday, the US

Computer Emergency Response Team, which operates under DHS, was continuing to send out cybersecurity warnings to critical infrastructure sectors. However, without a fully functioning CISA,

the risk of a cyber threat does appear to be higher. “If I were a bad actor, this would be a very tempting time to do some mischief,” Suzanne Spaulding, a former DHS official who led the

division tasked with cybersecurity, told the _Hill_. Danny Toler, the former acting assistant secretary for DHS’s cybersecurity office, told the _Hill_ that CISA is losing “critical

momentum” during the government shutdown to get its intended initiatives up and running. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) issued a statement last week

questioning whether CISA is still monitoring federal networks to guard against cybersecurity attacks on critical infrastructure, state election agencies, and high-risk chemical facilities.

Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s IT subcommittee, said last week that the government shutdown is making it more difficult for the

federal government to attract and retain talent within the cybersecurity world. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office from last year, DHS had failed to identified

many of its vacant cybersecurity needs, let alone fill them. “How can we ever hope to recruit or maintain IT talent when hardworking government workers are told: ‘sorry, you aren’t getting

paid, but you still need to come to work’ or ‘sorry, but no paycheck this week because of politics?’” Kelly said in a statement. “Large private sector companies never say this to their

employees and these are our competitors when it comes to IT talent recruitment.” Furloughed employees could mean that CISA computers go without needed security updates and do not have the

day-to-day ability to detect network intrusions as needed. “The first 24 hours between a hack and detection is vital,” Tom Gann, chief of public policy at security research firm McAfee, told

 _Roll Call_. Foreign government hackers could also gain knowledge into which US computer networks are considered “essential” based on which systems are running during the shutdown. “A

foreign intelligence organization can deduce from that who matters and who doesn’t,” Gann told _Roll Call_. DHS officials could not give comment because they are not working currently due to

the shutdown.