Casie Antalis has been named program director of the Joint Cyber Coordination Group at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
Antalis has held leadership positions within the US government for more than a decade, including at the White House, Customs and Border Protection, and most recently the Department of Homeland Security.
In a LinkedIn post on Sunday, Antalis said she had been named executive director of CISA, but the announcement has since been removed and CISA told SecurityWeek that Antalis has been appointed to the role of program director of the Joint Cyber Coordination Group.
It appears CISA has yet to find a new executive director following the departure of Bridget Bean, who served as CISA’s assistant director for nearly three years before taking on the role of executive director in August 2024. Bean announced two weeks ago that she is retiring from federal service.
Bean also served as acting director of CISA for the past five months, after Jen Easterly stepped down.
Madhu Gottumukkala, appointed recently as CISA’s deputy director, has been named acting director until a permanent director is found.
Sean Plankey, who previously held key cyber roles at the Department of Energy and the White House, has been nominated by the Trump administration to lead CISA, but his nomination has been blocked by Senator Ron Wyden over the publishing of a report describing telecom network weaknesses.
The White House recently announced plans to cut the budget of CISA by $491 million due to the agency becoming a censorship industrial complex at the expense of cyber defense. However, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security has approved a fiscal 2026 funding bill that would only cut the budget of the agency by $135 million, giving it $2.7 billion.
Roughly 1,000 people have left CISA since Donald Trump took office. The agency has lost nearly one-third of its workforce, but the White House had been planning to cut the same number of positions at the agency during the 2026 fiscal year.
Also in recent days, the NSA’s Patrick Ware has been named the new executive director of the United States Cyber Command.
Ware is the Cyber Command’s highest-ranking civilian, but Cybercom still does not have a permanent commander after the Trump administration fired Gen. Timothy Haugh.
SecurityWeek is tracking fresh hirings and promotions within the cybersecurity community on its People on the Move section.
* this article initially stated that Casie Antalis had been named the new executive director of CISA. Antalis has since removed the LinkedIn post announcing the new role and CISA representatives reached out to clarify that Antalis has been named Program Director of the Joint Cyber Coordination Group.
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