The director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency highlighted the agency’s accomplishments as it enters its fifth year as a federal agency.
Jen Easterly said 2022 was a productive year in a Jan. 12 blog post. Among accomplishments she highlighted was the increase in CISA workforce and implementation of ways to retain that workforce.
“As we enter our fifth year as one of the youngest agencies in the federal government, I’m incredibly proud of our team and what we’ve accomplished together,” Easterly said in the blog. “We’ve overcome obstacles to meet the demands of our mission, and we’ve grown significantly each year in capability and capacity, collaborating with our myriad of partners to reduce risk to the cyber and physical infrastructure American’s rely on every hour of every day.”
CISA isn’t, in the traditional sense, a law enforcement or intelligence agency, Easterly said in the blog. It’s also not a military organization or regulator.
“We’re largely a voluntary agency which relies on building trust with our partners across the globe — from every industry, to federal, state, local, Tribal, territorial and international governments, to non-profits, academia and the research community — and adding value to help them improve their security and resilience,” Easterly said in the blog.
People trust people, not institutions, Easterly said in the blog post. Considering that, she highlighted key people-related points, including strides made in employment. The CISA has a goal of hiring more than 3,400 full-time positions. The agency hired nearly 200 new people in the last three months and now has nearly 2,800 employees. There were 516 new hires in fiscal year 2022.
“Just as important as building a talented workforce is ensuring that we have the right people-first organizational culture to retain that workforce,” Easterly said in the blog. “It’s a culture that recognizes that continuing to attract and retain world-class talent requires creating an environment of psychological safety, where people can be their authentic self, where they feel cared for, supported, empowered and always treated with dignity and respect.”
The agency published a first-ever CISA Strategic Plan in 2022 that outlines goals and objectives for the next three years around the pillars of cyber defense, risk reduction and resilience, operational collaboration and agency unification.
