Top FBI cyber official Cynthia Kaiser exits for Halcyon
Cynthia Kaiser, a former top FBI cyber official, is joining the cybersecurity firm Halcyon this week as senior vice president of its newly created ransomware research center.
Kaiser left the FBI last week after 20 years, serving most recently as deputy assistant director leading the bureau’s cyber policy, intelligence and engagement branch and eight years overall focused on cyber. She told CyberScoop she’s eager to serve in the private sector after a career in government, having decided last year that she would leave after the election and making sure it was secure, followed by a period of aiding the transition between administrations.
That transition hasn’t seen a major shift at the FBI, she said.
“I think people expect when you have transitions among administrations that there’s going to be these wholesale, huge changes, but there’s a lot of commitment in this administration to countering cyber adversaries, to countering cyber crime, to making sure everyday Americans are kept safe,” she said. “I know from our end, we did not feel like there was a different mandate. Everybody wants to counter ransomware, no one wants China hacking U.S. systems.”
One thing that will be at the forefront of cyber under the second Trump administration is the “unenviable” task of harmonizing sometimes-conflicting cyber regulations, including the forthcoming rules on the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act,
she said. It’s a goal that began under the Biden administration.
At Halcyon, she’ll be focused on developing external partnerships with everyone from federal and state governments to industry information-sharing and analysis centers. She said she’ll bring a passion for combatting ransomware over from the FBI.
What the FBI and international law enforcement agencies have done to fight ransomware groups has created “a more fractured ecosystem” since “they’ve disrupted these large groups, and so you’re seeing a lot of smaller groups vying for dominance in the ransomware market,” Kaiser said.
They’ve changed their targeting and techniques, too, going after small- and medium-sized organizations as bigger potential victims have fortified their defenses, she said. They’ve harassed business owners and customers with information they’ve stolen to try to get payouts, “which is just like a whole other level of insanity that’s coming from these folks.”
They’ve focused on organizations that can’t afford to have any downtime when their systems are encrypted. “These actors are just the lowest of the low,” she said. “They don’t care who they hurt.” Cybercriminals are increasingly using artificial intelligence to aid their attacks, plus ransomware gangs are using social engineering more, abusing identity authentication and maneuvering around within systems once they’re inside, Kaiser said.
In a statement announcing Kaiser’s move Tuesday, Halcyon co-founder and CEO Jon Miller said “Cynthia will further strengthen Halcyon’s position as the industry-leading ransomware solution by bringing her decades of experience to help secure our advantage as the ransomware intelligence experts.”
The FBI said it doesn’t comment on personnel matters.
Another top FBI cyber official, Bryan Vorndran, also recently left the bureau, transitioning from assistant director of the Cyber Division to deputy chief information security officer at Microsoft.
