No, that’s not the acting head of the Social Security Administration. That’s a former CISA employee.

As CISA removes anti-disinformation personnel, one of its own former employees has fallen victim to a case of mistaken identity.

A longtime former employee of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an agency in the midst of curtailing its anti-misinformation and disinformation work under President Donald Trump, has found himself being misidentified online as a key figure in another Trump administration battle.

On social media and in some news outlets, Ross Foard, a former CISA information security specialist, is being falsely identified as Leland Dudek, acting head of the Social Security Administration. Dudek, who reportedly covertly helped the Elon Musk-tied Department of Government Efficiency, said he was placed on administrative leave before being named acting head of the agency. 

Images of Foard identifying him as Dudek on the Musk-owned X — most of them with a CISA flag visible in the background — prompted Foard to respond Thursday.

“If you are on X and you see a photo of me identified as Leland Dudek, do me a favor and post that it is not me,” Foard said on LinkedIn, a site where his identity is verified. “I’m Ross Foard, a former CISA employee and NOT the acting head of an important federal agency.”

It’s not clear how the two people became conflated. Foard’s profile says he served at CISA from March 2016 — the agency formally came into existence in 2018, but replaced an agency with a similar mission — until his retirement in June 2024. 

Neither he nor CISA immediately responded to requests for comment.

A number of X accounts, many of them voicing affinity for the Trump administration, have been posting erroneous pictures of Foard as Dudek and hailing him as a hero for at least two days. Other accounts have posted false images in Chinese.

Some media organizations also have misidentified Foard as Dudek, including the London-based Daily Mail in an article datelined Monday, as well as the Times of India and the right-wing Tennessee Star.

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Government

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Technology

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Threats

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Policy

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