Sen. Murphy: Trump administration has ‘illegally gutted funding for cybersecurity’

He’s the latest Democrat who sits on an appropriations panel to sharply criticize CISA personnel reductions and proposed funding cuts.

Another top appropriations Democrat criticized budget cuts affecting the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, saying the Trump administration has “illegally gutted funding for cybersecurity.”

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, made his remarks Thursday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a hearing on the administration’s fiscal 2026 budget. He said the CISA funding cuts were paying for the administration’s focus on the border, and violated congressional mandates on how to spend appropriated dollars.

“As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day hacking our nation,” Murphy said. CISA has already forced out some personnel under Trump and more cuts may be looming even before the proposed fiscal 2026 $491 million funding reduction.

It follows similar criticism from House appropriations Democrats on Tuesday. At another hearing on CISA’s budget proposal Thursday, one of those House members, Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois — the top Democrat on the House counterpart to Murphy’s subcommittee — was harsher in renewing that criticism.

“That’s not cutting fat,” she said. “That’s a death blow. Why is this administration so determined to degrade the cyber defenses that keep this country safe?”

Noem has been arguing the case that she’ll be returning CISA to its core mission of critical infrastructure protection, contending that the agency has been focused on defining misinformation and disinformation in playing the role of “Ministry of Truth.”

She faced skeptical questioning about that contention from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., at Thursday’s hearing.

“Quite frankly, you’re very light on specifics on what that actually” means, Peters said. He asked which offices or programs were off-mission.

She said there were people focused on election security misinformation and disinformation, and “we have eliminated those functions.” 

Peters asked if that was a reference to 15 employees who had been removed. “That’s 15 employees out of 3,000 who work at CISA,” he said. 

“It’s back on mission,” Noem answered. The administration’s “skinny budget” proposal devotes most of its justification for the proposed $491 million cut as an answer to CISA’s disinformation and misinformation work.

Noem offered other critiques of CISA’s performance, saying it didn’t know how to stop the major Salt Typhoon telecommunications breaches and needs to improve relationships with the private sector; has silos it needs to break down with intelligence agencies; and needs to build communications systems to better share cybersecurity information.

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

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

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