Pessimism is mounting about the chances that Congress will reauthorize a cyber threat information-sharing law before it’s set to expire at the end of this month — with no clear path for either a temporary or long-term extension.

Industry groups and the Trump administration have put a lot of muscle into renewing the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA 2015), which they say is a vital tool in the fight against malicious hackers because of the legal protections it provides for organizations to share cyber threat data with each other and the government.

But in recent weeks, multiple efforts to re-up the law have failed or been brushed aside:

• The House inserted a two-month extension of CISA 2015 into a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown, but after the House passed the bill, the Senate voted against the continuing resolution last week. Negotiations about continuing to fund the federal government past the end of this month appear to be at a standstill.
• The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had scheduled a markup of legislation last week introduced by Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., to extend the law with significant changes that drew bipartisan and industry criticism. The panel then abruptly canceled the markup.
• The top Democrat on Paul’s panel, Gary Peters of Michigan, tried to get an unaltered or “clean” 10-year reauthorization of the expiring law passed on the Senate floor with a unanimous consent motion, but Paul objected without explanation, preventing it from advancing.
• House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., sought earlier this month to offer his legislation to extend and alter CISA 2015 as an amendment to the House version of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but the Rules Committee prohibited the amendment from receiving a vote. (A Senate intelligence policy bill had included a 10-year extension, but when senators folded the intelligence authorization bill into that chamber’s version of the NDAA, Paul objected and got it removed.)

All of that leaves an extension of CISA 2015 without a home, and with a key senator, Paul, likely to stand in the way of swift renewal anytime soon. Under the circumstances, “I bet it does” expire, one industry source said of CISA 2015. 

“I’d be pleasantly surprised if it is continued given Paul’s objection,” the source said.

And that could be a big problem for both lawmakers and private-sector organizations.

While it’s unclear exactly how even a temporary lapse in the law might affect cyber information sharing, some have offered dire predictions about how bad it will be. In the legal community, “if you’re giving people a reason not to do something, they won’t do it,” said another industry source. 

If there’s a big breach during a time when the law has expired, the political risks increase, because cyberattack victims are likely to blame the lapse for what happens, said the source, who has extensive cybersecurity policy experience.

Best hopes (until recently)

Advocates had long pinned their hopes that a temporary two-year CISA 2015 renewal would be included in the continuing resolution (CR), given the urgency to avoid a government shutdown and the fact that the law was sent to expire when the fiscal year ends gave Congress a perfect opportunity. The House GOP’s inclusion of that short-term extension language in the CR — and Democrats’ support for it in their own proposal — indicated widespread support for the idea. The CR passed 217-212.

Senate leaders have a tradition of honoring objections on policy matters from the heads of the committees with jurisdiction over those topics when they are up for consideration in other bills. But multiple observers told CyberScoop that they interpreted the inclusion of the CISA 2015 law extension in the House CR as a sign that Senate leaders were prepared to ignore objections from Paul in this case. 

Besides lawmakers and private-sector groups, the Trump administration has been pressing for renewal. Industry and Senate sources say that new National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has been especially focused on selling lawmakers on the need for action on CISA 2015.

But temporary renewal is now a casualty of the broader fight over a government shutdown, with the Senate voting 44-48 against the CR.

Paul complications

Earlier this month, the House Homeland Security Committee approved Garbarino’s bill to renew CISA 2015 for 10 years by a vote of 25-0. While Democrats questioned whether the legislation should’ve included any changes to the law rather than a “clean” reauthorization, Garbarino’s changes themselves garnered no significant opposition.

That wasn’t the case for the version Paul sponsored and that was scheduled for vote in his committee last week, which would have provided a two-year reauthorization. Industry groups objected to the Paul legislation striking provisions of the 2015 law that provided protections related to cyber threat data sharing with the federal government against disclosure from Freedom of Information Act requests. They opposed a section that would get rid of the law’s section on federal preemption, under which the law supersedes state laws and regulations.

Democrats also raised concerns about several key definitions in the law, including those related to the rules for  how companies can use defensive measures. According to Senate aides who spoke with CyberScoop, these changes could leave small- and medium-sized businesses particularly vulnerable. Combined with the other industry objections, the aides said, Paul’s bill would have functionally ended private sector information sharing with the government.

Industry is wary of major changes to CISA 2015 in general.

“The fact is that over the last 10 years, it’s been an effective way for the private sector to share information, which is a key ingredient in improving cybersecurity, and we should just be very careful while making changes to something that is working pretty well,” said Henry Young, senior director of policy for Business Software Alliance.

A section of the legislation that Paul wrote on free speech protections also created questions.  Five Senate and industry sources told CyberScoop that Paul canceled the markup because Senate Republican panel members planned amendments that would have, with somewhat different approaches, stripped Paul’s changes in favor of a “clean” reauthorization. 

Spokespeople for senators that sources said were behind those amendments, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Paul disputed what the sources told CyberScoop about the reason for the cancellation.

“The characterization of the cancellation of the markup is false,” said the spokesperson, Gabrielle Lipsky. “The Democrats, who are not negotiating in good faith, asked for more time.”

Peters said in a Senate floor speech Friday that it was “disappointing” that Paul canceled the markup, and that “we were blocked from even having a discussion about the policy or draft legislation.”

Constituents in Paul’s home state have lobbied him on the importance of a “clean” reauthorization of CISA 2015; Paul’s public remarks about extension of the law have largely focused on passing a bill that includes additional guarantees on free speech.

“We make this request respecting your determination to protect Americans’ privacy and freedom of speech from censorship and intimidation by federal government employees, and we share those concerns,” a number of Kentucky business groups wrote to Paul in a Sept. 17 letter advocating for a “clean” extension. “We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to increase privacy and censorship protections in other legislation.” 

Peters asked for unanimous consent Friday for the Senate to advance a 10-year reauthorization. Paul said only, “I object,” thus blocking the renewal effort from Peters.

“Congress must pass an extension of these cybersecurity protections and prevent a lapse that would completely undercut our cybersecurity defenses and expose critical sectors to preventable attacks,” Peters said in a statement to CyberScoop. “These liability protections ensure trusted, rapid information sharing between the private sector and government to quickly detect, prevent, and respond to cybersecurity threats. I’m continuing to work toward a bipartisan, bicameral deal that will renew these protections for the long-term, but we cannot afford to let these critical cybersecurity protections expire at the end of the month.”

Other avenues

A common hope among advocates was that after a short-term extension became law as part of the CR, a longer-term extension would be included in the NDAA, which often passes toward the end of each calendar year or the start of the next.

But hopes for that diminished after actions in both the House and Senate. In the Senate, the Intelligence Committee had included a 10-year renewal in its annual intelligence authorization bill. That legislation was then included in the Senate version of the NDAA, but sources on and off the Hill told CyberScoop that Paul objected to inclusion of the CISA 2015 extension, so it was removed.

And the Rules Committee decided on Sept. 9 that Garbarino’s CISA 2015 renewal amendment wasn’t germane, thus preventing him from offering it during debate on the House floor about the NDAA. One day later, the House passed its version of the NDAA, 231-196.

The next steps for CISA 2015 reauthorization are unclear. Paul’s office did not respond to a question about his future plans for renewing CISA 2015.

Options for a short-term renewal are limited for now to whatever congressional leaders do to try to revive or replace a CR, but the timeline for doing so before CISA 2015 expires is exceptionally tight. Options for a long-term renewal might include an amendments package for the Senate version of the NDAA, since the full Senate has yet to take up its bill.

CISA 2015 “must not lapse on September 30, 2025. Allowing it to expire will create a significantly more hostile security environment for the U.S.,” Matthew Eggers, vice president of cybersecurity policy in the cyber, intelligence, and security division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told CyberScoop in a written statement. “The Chamber advocates for a multi-year reauthorization of this vital law. Short-term extensions are counterproductive. Both the private sector and the government need certainty, including the ability to allocate resources for long-term cybersecurity planning and implementation. House and Senate leaders and the Trump administration have expressed strong support for reauthorizing CISA 2015.”

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The United States needs a “new, coordinated strategy” to counter its cyber adversaries and “shift the burden of risk in cyberspace from Americans to them,” National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said Tuesday.

“Collectively, we’ve made great progress in identifying, responding to and remediating threats, but we still lack strategic coherence and direction,” he said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit. “A lot has been done, but it has not been sufficient. We’ve admired the problem for too long, and now it’s time to do something about it.”

The Biden administration produced its first cybersecurity strategy in 2023, with its Office of the National Cyber Director leading the writing of that document. It was part of a broader Biden administration approach to shift the cyber burden from individuals to more powerful institutions like the private sector. 

“The Trump administration will drive a new coordinated strategy that will advance U.S. interests and thwart our adversaries in cyberspace,” Cairncross said in a speech that marked his first public remarks since his confirmation in August. “America has the best talent, the most innovative private sector, the brightest research universities, broad academic resources and powerful government capabilities.

“We have all the tools, and now we have the political will in place to address these challenges,” he said. “We must work together, using all of our nation’s cyber capabilities, to shape adversary behavior and, most importantly, shift the burden of risk in cyberspace from Americans to them.”

The United States needs to “create an enduring advantage” over China, he said. China and other U.S. cyber adversaries that Cairncross called “brittle authoritarian regimes” simultaneously have to expend resources tracking dissidents and maintaining control, but also have the advantage of being able to “integrate instruments of power more seamlessly than we can.”

Cairncross said of cyberspace that “for too long, our adversaries have operated in this environment with near impunity. For too long, we have foregone the chances to set conditions for sustained security and stability. Our action or inaction today holds tremendous implications for our future.”

In separate remarks at another event Tuesday, Cairncross said he also wants to help international allies, particularly nations in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, combat China’s efforts. 

“There’s many partners around the world who are looking for help as China attempts to export a surveillance state across planet Earth, country by country, continent by continent,” he said at an event hosted by Politico. “We have to engage to help fight that.” 

At the Politico event, he also said he expects the office to be more streamlined with the National Security Council and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, adding that the White House has been focused on what Cairncross referred to as eliminating the “turf wars and bureaucratic nonsense” of prior administrations.   

“The United States hasn’t had an overarching cyber policy strategy that’s set in coordination from offense all the way through to end-user defense, to state, local and tribal governments, working together in putting tactical operations and policies in place that support and feed into that strategy,” he said. “That is what we are going to do.”

In the shorter term, Cairncross mentioned three priorities. One is passage of legislation to reauthorize a law expiring this month that provides legal protections to companies for sharing cyber threat data with the government and within the private sector, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.

Another is for “the federal government to get our own house in order,” he said.

“Our federal systems need rapid modernization,” Cairncross said, and the Trump administration is working on policies to “update our technologies and ensure that we’re prepared for a post-quantum future.”

And third, industry needs to focus on securing its products and protecting privacy at the outset, during the design process — and the administration will work to streamline cybersecurity regulations on industry’s behalf, he said.

Cairncross said it was a priority of the first Trump administration, and would continue to be in the second, to develop the cybersecurity workforce. Under Trump, however, the administration has pushed to dramatically slash personnel and funding for CISA.

Greg Otto contributed to this report. 

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Two executive orders President Donald Trump has signed in recent months could prove to have a more dramatic impact on cybersecurity than first thought, for better or for worse.

Overall, some of Trump’s executive orders have been more about sending a message than spurring lasting change, as there are limits to their powers. Specifically, some of the provisions of the two executive orders with cyber ramifications — one from March on state and local preparedness generally, and one from June explicitly on cybersecurity — are more puzzling to cyber experts than anything else, while others preserve policies of the prior administration which Trump has criticized in harsh terms. Yet others might fall short of the orders’ intentions, in practice.

But amid the flurry of personnel changes, budget cuts and other executive branch activity in the first half of 2025 under Trump, the full scope of the two cyber-related executive orders might have been somewhat overlooked. And the effects of some of those orders could soon begin coming to fruition as key top Trump cyber officials assume their posts.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Montgomery said the executive orders were “more important” than he originally understood, noting that he “underestimated” the March order after examining it more closely. Some of the steps would be positive if fully implemented, such as the preparedness order’s call for the creation of a national resilience strategy, he said.

The Center for Democracy & Technology said the June order, which would unravel some elements of executive orders under presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, would have a negative effect on cybersecurity.

“Rolling back numerous provisions focused on improving cybersecurity and identity verification in the name of preventing fraud, waste, and abuse is like claiming we need safer roads while removing guardrails from bridges,” said the group’s president, Alexandra Reeve Givens. “The only beneficiaries of this step backward are hackers who want to break into federal systems, fraudsters who want to steal taxpayer money from insecure services, and legacy vendors who want to maintain lucrative contracts without implementing modern security protections.”

The big changes and the in-betweens

Perhaps the largest shift in either order is the deletion of a section of an executive order Biden signed in January on digital identity verification that was intended to fight cybercrime and fraud. In undoing the measures in that section, the White House asserted that it was removing mandates “that risked widespread abuse by enabling illegal immigrants to improperly access public benefits.”

One critic, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the changes candidly, said “there’s not a single true statement or phrase or word in” the White House’s claim. The National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment on the order.

Some, though, such as Nick Leiserson of the Institute for Security and Technology, observed that the digital identities language in the Biden order was among the “weakest” in the document, since it only talked about how agencies should “consider” ways to accept digital identities.

The biggest prospective change in the March order was a stated shift for state and local governments to handle disaster preparedness, including for cyberattacks, a notion that drew intense criticism from cyber experts at the time who said states don’t have the resources to defend themselves against Chinese hackers alone. But that shift could have bigger ripples than originally realized.

Errol Weiss, chief security officer at the Health-ISAC, an organization devoted to exchanging threat information in the health sector, said that as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has scaled back the free services it offers like vulnerability scanning, states would hypothetically have to step into that gap to aid entities like the ones Weiss serves. “If that service goes away, and pieces of it probably already have, there’s going to be a gap there,” he said.

Some of the changes from the March order might only be realized now that the Senate has confirmed Sean Cairncross as national cyber director, or after the Senate takes action on Sean Plankey to lead CISA, said Jim Lewis, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

For instance: The order directs a review of critical infrastructure policy documents, including National Security Memorandum 22, a rewrite of a decade-old directive meant to foster better threat information sharing and respond to changing threats. There are already signs the administration plans to move away from that memorandum, a development that a Union of Concerned Scientists analyst said was worrisome, but critics of the memo such as Montgomery said a do-over could be a good thing.

Most of the other biggest potential changes, however, are in the June order. This is a partial list:

• It eliminates a requirement under the January Biden order that government vendors provide certifications about the security of their software development to CISA for review. “I just don’t think that you can play the whole, ‘We care about cyber,’ and, ‘Oh, by the way, this incredible accountability control? We rolled that back,’” said Jake Williams, director of research and development at Hunter Strategy.
• It removes another January Biden order requirement that the National Institute of Standards and Technology develop new guidance on minimum cybersecurity practices, thought to be among that order’s “most ambitious prescriptions.”
• It would move CISA in the direction of implementing a “no-knock” or “no-notice” approach to hunting threats within federal agencies, Leiserson noted.
• It strikes language saying that the internet data routing rules known as Border Gateway Protocol are “vulnerable to attack and misconfiguration,” something Williams said might ease pressure on internet service providers to make improvements. “The ISPs know it’s going to cost them a ton to address the issue,” he said.
• It erases a requirement from the Biden order that contained no deadline, but said that federal systems must deploy phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication. 
• It deletes requirements for pilot projects stemming from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-led Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge. DARPA recently completed its 2025 challenge, awarding prize money at this year’s DEF CON cybersecurity conference.
• It says that “agencies’ policies must align investments and priorities to improve network visibility and security controls to reduce cyber risks,” a change security adviser and New York University adjunct professor Alex Sharpe praised.

Some of the changes led to analysts concluding, alternatively, a continuation or rollback of directives from the January Biden executive order on things like federal agency email encryption or post-quantum cryptography.

The head-scratchers and the mysteries

Some of the moves in the June order perplexed analysts.

One was specifying that cyber sanctions must be limited, in the words of a White House fact sheet, “to foreign malicious actors, preventing misuse against domestic political opponents and clarifying that sanctions do not apply to election-related activities.” The Congressional Research Service could find no indication that cyber sanctions had been used domestically, and said the executive order appears to match prior policy.

Another is the removal of the NIST guidance on minimum cybersecurity practices. “If you’re trying to deregulate, why kill the effort to harmonize the standards?” Sharpe asked. 

Yet another is deletion of a line from the January Biden order to the importance of open-source software. “This is a bit puzzling, as open source software does underlie almost all software, including federal systems,” Leiserson wrote (emphasis his).

Multiple sources told CyberScoop it’s unclear who wrote the June order and whom they consulted with in doing so. One source said some agency personnel complained about the lack of interagency vetting of the document. Another said Alexei Bulazel, the NSC director of cyber, appeared to have no role in it.

Another open question is how much force will be put behind implementing the June order.

It loosens the strictness with which agencies must carry out the directives it lays out, at least compared with the January Biden order. It gives the national cyber director a more prominent role in coordination, Leiserson said. And it gives CISA new jobs.

“Since President Trump took office — and strengthened by his Executive Order in June — CISA has taken decisive action to bolster America’s cybersecurity, focusing on critical protections against foreign cyber threats and advancing secure technology practices,” said Marci McCarthy, director of public affairs for CISA.

California Rep. Eric Swalwell, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee’s cyber subpanel, told CyberScoop he was skeptical about what the June executive order signalled about Trump’s commitment to cybersecurity.

“The President talks tough on cybersecurity, but it’s all for show,” he said in a statement. “He signed the law creating CISA and grew its budget, but also rolled back key Biden-era protections, abandoned supply chain efforts, and drove out cyber experts. CISA has lost a third of its workforce, and his FY 2026 budget slashes its funding …

“Even if his cyber and AI goals are sincere, he’s gutted the staff needed to meet them,” Swalwell continued. “He’s also made the government less secure by giving unvetted allies access to sensitive data. His actions don’t match his words.”

Montgomery said there was a contradiction between the June order giving more responsibilities to agencies like NIST while the administration was proposing around a 20% cut to that agency, and the March order shifting responsibilities to state and local governments without giving them the resources to handle it.

A WilmerHale analysis said that as the administration shapes cyber policy, the June order “signals what that approach is likely to be: removing requirements perceived as barriers to private sector growth and expansion while preserving key requirements that protect the U.S. government’s own systems against cyber threats posed by China and other hostile foreign actors.”

For all of the changes it could make, analysts agreed the June order does continue a fair number of Biden administration policies, like commitments to the Cyber Trust Mark labeling initiative, space cybersecurity policy and requirements for defense contractors to protect sensitive information.

Some of those proposals didn’t get very far before the changeover from Biden to Trump. But it might be easier for the Trump administration to achieve its goals.

“It’s hard to say the car is going in the wrong direction when they haven’t started the engine,” Lewis said. “These people don’t have the same problem, this current team, because they’re stripping stuff back. They’re saying, ‘We’re gonna do less.” So it’s easier to do less.”

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Sean Cairncross took his post this week as national cyber director at what many agree is a “pivotal” time for the office, giving him a chance to shape its future role in the bureaucracy, tackle difficult policy issues, shore up industry relations and take on key threats.

The former White House official, Republican National Committee leader and head of a federal foreign aid agency became just the third Senate-confirmed national cyber director at an office (ONCD) that’s only four years old. He’s the first person President Donald Trump has assigned to the position after the legislation establishing it became law at the end of his first term.

Two people — House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., and Adam Meyers, senior vice president of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike — specifically used the word “pivotal” to describe this moment for Cairncross and his office, while others said as much in other ways.

“It’s a new organization, and with any new organization, you’ve got to build up the muscle memory of how ONCD fits into the interagency process and what it means to set a unified national cybersecurity agenda, the language the director was using in his nomination hearing,” Nicholas Leiserson, a former assistant national cyber director under President Joe Biden who worked on the legislation to create the office as a Hill staffer, told CyberScoop. “We need to make sure that ONCD is the center of the policymaking apparatus. … That is going to be critical to his success.”

Brian Harrell, a former infrastructure protection official at the Deparment of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in Trump’s first term, said that with personnel reductions at CISA and change elsewhere, Cairncross has a big opportunity.

“ONCD must be seen as the air traffic controller on all things cyber moving forward,” he said via email. “Given the agency rebuild happening at CISA, and new leadership at FBI and NSA cyber, now is the time to build influence and patch struggling relationships. Add to this, a private sector that is unsure where to turn to during a crisis … Sean must be seen as a convener and facilitator to get the President the right information to make key decisions.”

On the policy front, Leiserson, now senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Security and Technology, said Cairncross has a great opportunity to work through the thicket of federal cybersecurity regulations and disentangle them in a harmonization effort that began under Biden and has bipartisan support. Some seasoned staffers who worked on the issue then remain in the federal government, Leiserson said.

Garbarino also brought up harmonization in a written statement as an issue he wants to see Cairncross address, along with leading the charge renewing the 2015 threat data sharing law known as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, set to expire next month. Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, said in a press release congratulating Cairncross that renewal of that law was “essential to help ONCD achieve its cybersecurity mission.”

USTelecom President and CEO Jonathan Spalter said enhancing the government’s relationship with the private sector, a subject Cairncross brought up in his confirmation hearing, was also vital. Dave DeWalt, CEO of NightDragon, a venture capital and advisory firm, said of Cairncross in a statement to CyberScoop: “I know that under his leadership, public-private partnership will continue to strengthen and secure our future.”

Those policy challenges, as well as the challenges of strengthening the national cyber director’s standing within the federal government and fortifying the public-private partnership, go hand-in-hand with the threats Cairncross will have to confront.

“The mission of the Office of the National Cyber Director has never been more critical: advancing a unified, strategic, and forward-leaning approach to the cyber threats facing our increasingly digital society,” Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University and a former member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission that recommended that Congress create the office, said in a written statement.

Leiserson said threats like the Chinese hackers known as Salt Typhoon penetrating telecommunications networks surely would be at the forefront of Cairncross’s concerns — a threat Cairncross brought up at his confirmation hearing. Harrell mentioned the looming possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Oxman raised the threats to U.S. critical infrastructure and the supply chain. CrowdStrike’s Meyers, in a statement to CyberScoop, said the pivotal moment of Cairncross’s confirmation comes as “threat actors weaponize AI and the threat landscape continues to evolve at machine speed.”

Cairncross comes into the job with far less cybersecurity experience than many who have held federal cyber leadership posts. And he comes in with other potential disadvantages, too. At his nomination hearing, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., pointed to deep budget cuts at CISA, telling Cairncross that “you will oversee the single biggest cut in federal cybersecurity dollars.”

But Leiserson said it was encouraging that Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal would keep funding for the Office of the National Cyber Director pretty level.

There are other reasons to be optimistic about the view from federal leaders on the office, too, some pointed out. Cilluffo noted that the 59-35 vote for Cairncross in the Senate suggested some bipartisan support. Leiserson observed that Cairncross was one of the few nominees to escape the nominee backlog in the Senate before lawmakers went on recess.

As for his relative lack of cyber experience, Cairncross has talked about surrounding himself with the right people, Leiserson said.

“You want the unicorns who are incredibly politically astute and who have very deep cyber knowledge,” he said. “These people are hard to come by. We’ve had real cyber experts on the job. Now we’ve got someone who … is going to have an easy time navigating the West Wing. That is a skill set that is vital for running a White House organization, and shouldn’t be discounted.”

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The Senate voted to confirm Sean Cairncross as national cyber director Saturday, giving the Trump administration one of its top cyber officials after a more than five-month process.

The vote was 59-35.

President Donald Trump nominated Cairncross on Feb. 12. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on his nomination in early June, then voted to advance him that same month.

“I want to thank President Trump for this opportunity. It is an incredible honor to serve our country and this President as the National Cyber Director,” Cairncross said in a written statement. “As the cyber strategic environment continues to evolve, we must ensure our policy efforts and capabilities deliver results for our national security and the American people. The United States must dominate the cyber domain through strong collaboration across departments and agencies, as well as private industry. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will enter a new era of effective cybersecurity policy.”

At his hearing, Cairncross said he’d be focused on policy coordination. He fielded questions from senators about his lack of cyber experience, the biggest cyber threats, cuts to federal cybersecurity personnel and more.

Cairncross has held leadership positions inside and outside of government where there’s been a tenuous connection to cybersecurity. He served as CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a foreign aid agency, in the first Trump administration, along with roles in the White House. He’s also a former top official at the Republican National Committee.

Despite that, Cairncross has the vocal support of a number cyber experts and past government cyber officials

The Senate vote on Cairncross slots one more cyber leader into the Trump administration.  Alexei Bulazel has taken the job of top cyber official with the White House’s National Security Council, and Brett Leatherman is in the top cyber position at the FBI.

Trump has nominated Sean Plankey to serve as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-6 last week to move his vote to the floor, although Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has placed a hold on the nomination pending the release of a telecommunications cybersecurity report.

Trump has displaced the joint head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, and hasn’t settled yet on who will take over.

There’s a backlog of Trump nominees that Cairncross got caught up in prior to the floor vote Saturday.

Updated, 8/3/25: to include statement from Cainrcross.

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