Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said the president’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget of $3.01 billion for CISA includes $470 million for the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation, or CDM, program to help strengthen operational visibility into agency networks.

Easterly appeared before the House Appropriations Committee’s homeland security subcommittee on Tuesday and called the CDM program an “invaluable tool” for the rapid deployment of protection to federal agencies.

“Using our CDM program and our vulnerability scanning tools, CISA identified and drove mitigation of over 15 million severe vulnerabilities across the federal government in FY 2023,” Easterly said in her testimony before the subcommittee.

According to Easterly, the president’s budget request includes $1.7 billion for the Cybersecurity Division to further develop the capacity to detect and counter cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, $394 million for the Joint Collaborative Environment tools and capabilities and $255 million for the delivery of local risk reduction services.

The CISA director stated that the budget would provide $187 million for infrastructure security and resilience efforts, $130 million for emergency communications, $98 million for the activities of the Stakeholder Engagement Division and $140 million for the National Risk Management Center.

Easterly noted that the proposed CISA funding will enable the agency to broaden risk management and analysis efforts across critical infrastructure sectors and “maintain analytic capabilities, including risk methodology and framework development to identify critical infrastructure interdependencies and cascading consequences.”

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit on June 6 and hear cyber experts, government and industry leaders discuss the latest trends and the dynamic role of cyber in the public sector. Register here.

National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr. announced at a recent White House event the intent of the federal government to transition by summer the Information Technology Management job series — which encompasses a majority of the federal IT workforce — to skills-based hiring.

The move is part of a broader effort to use a skills-based hiring framework, when appropriate, with the ultimate aim of promoting access to cybersecurity jobs in the government without relying on college degree requirements, the Office of the National Cyber Director said Monday.

For their part, representatives from multiple organizations across various industries present at the event expressed their commitment to follow the government’s lead and bolster their cyber talent pipeline by relying on skills-based principles and practices like apprenticeships, scholarships and trainings.

Examples of such efforts include a technical and professional learning initiative by Verizon in collaboration with edX; a cybersecurity curriculum pilot program involving Cisco Networking Academy and Wichita State University; and continued investments by Motorola Solutions in talent development partnerships and programs.

Cyber experts, government leaders and industry visionaries will speak about the dynamic and evolving role of cyber in the public sector at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit, which will take place in June. Register now to attend this important event!