CISA threat-hunting leader to depart for private sector role
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Jermaine Roebuck announced his voluntary departure last week. The cyber agency has already lost a third of its workforce in the past year.
A senior official in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency overseeing the agency’s threat hunting activities is leaving for a role in the private sector, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Jermaine Roebuck, CISA’s associate director for threat hunting, announced his departure in an all-hands meeting this past Thursday, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his career plans.
Roebuck told Nextgov/FCW via email that his expected last day is March 6. He declined to comment further.
CISA’s threat hunting unit works with law enforcement and intelligence analysts to trace malicious activity across federal networks. The group regularly scans government and critical infrastructure systems for intrusions and uses forensic analysis to uncover hackers’ tactics, techniques and procedures.
The announcement comes as the cyber agency has furloughed most of its workforce after last week’s funding lapse for the Department of Homeland Security, where CISA is housed. Roebuck has held multiple roles at CISA, and he helped stand up the agency’s Election Security Operations Team leading into the 2020 presidential election.
The expected move, which is voluntary, is the latest loss for the cyberdefense agency that has already hemorrhaged around a third of its workforce in the last year. The Trump administration has deployed various mechanisms to reduce its workforce, including reduction-in-force notices and other means to incentivize departures.
Last week, CISA’s top official — who is separately facing scrutiny over a handful of developments concerning his tenure — confirmed to House appropriators that multiple employees were given transfer orders to other offices inside DHS over the last year.
On top of this, CISA’s Cybersecurity Division is undergoing a reorganization, with some programs expected to be shuttered, Cybersecurity Dive reported last week.
The cyber agency still does not have a permanent Senate-confirmed leader. Sean Plankey, the White House nominee for the role, was renominated at the start of this year, but ongoing Senate hurdles are slowing the confirmation process.