White House cybersecurity coordinator takes on additional role in Trump administration

CyberScoop has learned that Rob Joyce will take on a new position starting Monday as President Donald Trump's acting deputy homeland security adviser.

Rob Joyce, the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator, is ascending through the ranks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

CyberScoop has learned that Joyce will take on a new position starting Monday as acting deputy homeland security adviser to the president, a position that was vacated by John Daly in recent days and Amy Pope before him in January.

Joyce is a well respected intelligence professional and one of the leading cybersecurity experts in the federal government. Prior to the White House, he worked in the National Security Agency, leading the spy agency’s elite hacking unit known as Tailored Access Operations.

The March appointment of Joyce as White House cybersecurity coordinator was heralded by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Joyce will continue in his role as the nation’s cybersecurity czar in addition to the new position. His current duties include coordinating, communicating with and effectively leading the individual cybersecurity efforts of each federal agency, including civilian and military departments.

The deputy homeland security adviser role involves a range of additional and sweeping responsibilities, including those related to immigration, counterterrorism and disaster response. Joyce reports directly to Thomas Bossert, the homeland security adviser, who has helmed the Trump administration’s hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and elsewhere.

Rep. Delia Ramirez takes over as top House cybersecurity Dem

She replaces Rep. Eric Swalwell following his resignation, giving her the position of ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.

While White House demands deterrence, Trump shrugs

The overlooked changes that two Trump executive orders could bring to cybersecurity

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure