Sen. Ron Wyden has placed the nomination of Sean Plankey as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on hold, citing the refusal to publicly release an unclassified 2022 report on security practices at U.S. telecom firms.
Wyden said the Salt Typhoon campaign, a state-linked effort to infiltrate the networks of U.S. telecom firms by China, should force the disclosure of the report, and he accused CISA of covering up years of negligent security practices by the telecom industry.
“When it comes to harm to U.S. cybersecurity, the administration can easily comply with Sen. Wyden’s request and proceed with the nomination,” Keith Chu, deputy policy director and spokesperson for Wyden, told Cybersecurity Dive via email.
“Second, I’d point out that the dismantling of Cybersecurity Review Board investigating the Salt Typhoon hack, expected firing of a significant portion of CISA, our nation’s highest national security officials texting sensitive defense information on insecure phones, rampant circumvention of security protocols by DOGE and failure to present any coherent cybersecurity agenda all have opened the door to major risks to American cybersecurity.”
Salt Typhoon, a threat group linked to the People’s Republic of China, gained access to the networks of nine major telecommunications firms, as part of an effort to hack into sensitive phone records and in many cases gain access to actual communications of top U.S. officials.
AT&T and Verizon earlier this year said they were able to evict the hackers from their respective networks with the help of forensics experts.
Wyden has been pushing CISA to address security risks in the telecom industry long before the Trump administration took office.
In April 2023, Wyden sent a letter to former CiSA Director Jen Easterly and National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone seeking cybersecurity audits of FirstNet, a phone network used by first responders and the U.S. military.
What remains unclear is how long the nomination of Plankey could be delayed. CISA has been under severe pressure in recent months due to an administration effort to eliminate thousands of jobs in the federal bureaucracy.
At least 130 positions at CISA were cut in mid February, and just this month, sources said the administration is considering a major purge of jobs at CISA through a combination of buyouts and additional terminations.
Wyden previously held up the nomination of a key Department of Homeland Security official in 2018 over concerns about cell phone surveillance technology.
