The record-setting partial government shutdown that enters its 24th day today is having a damaging effect on the nation’s cybersecurity, both now and in the future.
Many agencies’ cybersecurity teams are down to skeleton staffs. Critical services related to cybersecurity are not being provided to the public. In addition, experts say, the shutdown is encouraging the most talented employees to leave for jobs in the private sector and will make it difficult to recruit in the future.
Skeleton Teams
The Department of Homeland Security has furloughed nearly half of the staff at its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as on the analysis and operations team that provides intelligence to public and private sector partners.
Many government websites are already down as a result, said Pravin Kothari, CEO at CipherCloud, a San Jose-based cybersecurity company.
“The implications of the shutdown for the many hundreds of US government data centers and cloud deployments are perhaps more frightening,” he added.
