Former top NSA cyber official: Probationary firings ‘devastating’ to cyber, national security

The NSA’s former top cybersecurity official told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s attempts to mass fire probationary federal employees will be “devastating” for U.S. cybersecurity operations.

In testimony to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rob Joyce, the former NSA cybersecurity director who retired from government service last year, warned lawmakers that countering Chinese hacking campaigns against critical infrastructure will require top-level cybersecurity talent at the NSA and other government agencies.

“Part of the defense is also having expertise and capacity in the government,” Joyce said. “I want to raise my grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut U.S. government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on the cybersecurity and our national security.”

Probationary federal employees are those who have been in their current positions for less than a year, though in many cases those employees have worked other positions in the federal government over their careers.

Shortly after coming into office, the Trump administration, using the Office of Personnel Management, attempted to fire nearly all federal probationary employees en masse. A federal judge has temporarily blocked that order, citing a lack of authority by OPM to fire employees at other agencies.

OPM this week updated its guidance to reflect that firing decisions are made by individual departments and agencies, and many of those agencies have begun working to rehire or reinstate batches of fired workers in the weeks since they were dismissed.

Joyce, who spent 34 years at the NSA, emphasized how important those employees are in sustaining an aggressive stance against China in cyberspace.

“At my former agency, remarkable technical talent was recruited into developmental programs that provided intensive unique training and hands-on experience to cultivate vital skills,” Joyce said. “Eliminating probationary employees will destroy a pipeline of top talent responsible for hunting and eradicating [Chinese] threats.”

But he also lamented that the firings may have already harmed the NSA’s ability to retain and attract top cybersecurity talent, as those affected seek more stable employment options.

“If the positions are not eliminated, the pervasive uncertainty and doubt in the current environment is forcing them to seek and secure opportunities for their families outside national security,” Joyce said.

Joyce’s comments were backed up by other national security officials at the hearing. Emma Stewart, director of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Center for Securing Digital Energy Technology, said dismissals will result in “loss of knowledge that we’ve gained over a number of years” that will “challenge how we coordinate and deploy in the future and our abilities to deter [Chinese] attacks.”

Laura Galante, who led the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence until January, called the attempted firings a “significant blow” to the federal government’s cybersecurity capabilities, one that will impact the ability of agencies like the NSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to lead and coordinate international responses to cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

“This will be a significant blow to the people who have come in over the last several years or who have waited on clearances sometimes upwards of a year or more to come in for technically important roles where training is limited on the outside and they’re doing core work to secure U.S. networks,” Galante said.

At another congressional hearing Wednesday, Democrats criticized cyber personnel cuts.

“Unbelievably, President Trump has fired key cybersecurity personnel at the Department of Homeland Security and dismissed members of the Cyber Safety Review Board investigating recent Chinese attacks,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said at a hearing of the panel focused on Chinese national security threats.

“We are hearing that significant cuts are coming for the remaining workforce at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,” he said in his prepared opening remarks. “Let’s be clear — the Trump administration gutting U.S. cyber defenses makes it harder to protect Americans against Chinese cyber attacks and makes us less safe.”

One witness also said that cutting cyber personnel was a bad idea.

“I do worry the cuts are coming at the wrong time,” said Rush Doshi, an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University, and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, citing a drumbeat of Chinese cyberattacks. “Every single day there’s something new. We need to be scaling up, not scaling down.”

Other witnesses, though, said having the right personnel in the private sector was more important. Craig Singleton, China program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said companies had to protect themselves and not depend on the federal government. 

This story was updated March 5, 2025, with additional comments from the House hearing.

Tim Starks contributed to this story.