Trump picks Sean Cairncross for national cyber director

If confirmed by the Senate, he would become just the third permanent leader of the Office of the National Cyber Director.

President Donald Trump has selected Sean Cairncross — a former White House and Republican National Committee official and the former CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal foreign aid agency — to be his national cyber director.

Cairncross hasn’t held any major cyber-related positions, but during his time in the Trump White House as deputy assistant to the president and senior White House adviser to the chief of staff, he is said to have “provided counsel on a variety of issues, including matters related to national security.”

He also served as chief operating officer at the Republican National Committee when, in 2016, he said the RNC had not been hit by a cyberattack, contrary to the claims of a GOP congressman. And he’s served in some other tech-related roles outside of government.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would become just the third permanent leader of the Office of the National Cyber Director, replacing Harry Coker, who himself replaced acting director Kemba Walden. Chis Inglis first held the position after its creation four years ago.

Cairncross represents Trump’s first real opportunity to put his mark on the office, aside from last month’s repeal of an executive order establishing an order of succession.

Cairncross is the president and founder of the Cairncross Group, a Washington, D.C.-based strategic consultancy. He has worked at prominent law firms in addition to his roles at the White House, MCC, RNC and his own company.

When the RNC was changing leadership this past election cycle, Trump’s team brought him in to “watch the money,” according to Axios, where he again served as chief operating officer and notified staffers about the need to reapply for their jobs. 

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Government

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• 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

• 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

• Election official says Tina Peters would be consultant, won’t have access to election systems

• Bipartisan Senate bill aims to prepare energy sector for Q-Day