The headlines are alarming: CISA gutted by a third, government shutdowns creating blind spots, decades-old systems still running critical infrastructure. The narrative writes itself: federal cybersecurity is failing, and we're all doomed.
But what if the opposite is true? What if federal cybersecurity isn't broken at all, but functioning exactly as the system was designed to function? The real problem isn't incompetence or underfunding,it's that we've built a cybersecurity apparatus optimized for political theater rather than actual security.
The evidence is hiding in plain sight. While we panic about staffing cuts at CISA, we ignore the fundamental question: why did an agency founded in 2018 balloon to over 3,000 employees in just six years? Why do we measure cybersecurity success by headcount rather than outcomes? And why does every cyber incident trigger calls for more funding, more agencies, and more oversight, but never a hard look at whether the current approach actually works?
The Theater of Federal Cybersecurity
Federal cybersecurity operates like a performance designed for an audience of legislators, auditors, and oversight committees. The script is predictable: incident occurs, agency requests more resources, Congress holds hearings, new frameworks get published, budgets increase, and everyone declares victory. Meanwhile, the same vulnerabilities persist year after year.
Consider the Government Accountability Office's approach to cybersecurity oversight. They issue recommendations, agencies formally "accept" them, and progress gets measured by implementation percen
The retiring comptroller general's concern about "taking our foot off the gas at CISA" perfectly captures this dynamic. The metaphor assumes that more pressure (more staff, more programs, more oversight) leads to better outcomes. But what if pressing harder on the gas pedal when you're stuck in mud just digs you deeper?
The real dysfunction isn't that federal cybersecurity is underfunded or understaffed,it's that success gets defined by activity rather than results.
Take patch management, the perpetual white whale of federal IT. Agencies spend millions on vulnerability scanners, patch management systems, and compliance frameworks. They generate impressive metrics: thousands of systems scanned, hundreds of patches deployed, compliance percentages in the high 90s. Yet the same classes of vulnerabilities keep causing breaches year after year.
This isn't because federal IT workers are incompetent. It's because the system rewards demonstrated compliance with process over actual risk reduction. An agency that patches 98% of known vulnerabilities but gets breached looks like a victim of sophisticated attackers. An agency that patches 85% but never gets breached looks like it's failing at basic hygiene.
The Incentive Structure Problem
The current federal cybersecurity apparatus is a rational response to perverse incentives. Agency leaders get promoted for avoiding scandals, not for preventing attacks that never make headlines. Contractors win renewals by demonstrating process compliance, not by eliminating entire classes of vulnerabilities. Oversight bodies measure success by the number of recommendations issued, not by improvements in actual security posture.
This creates a system optimized for defensive justification rather than offensive capability. When something goes wrong, the question isn't "how do we prevent this class of attack?" but "can we prove we followed all the approved processes?" The answer to the second question is usually yes, which means the system is working as designed.
The staffing cuts at CISA actually illuminate this dynamic perfectly. The agency's acting director claims they're "accelerating innovation, deepening operational collaboration, and directing resources where they yield the greatest return." His critics argue this weakens cybersecurity. But what if both are right?
What if a smaller, more focused CISA could actually be more effective at cybersecurity, even as it becomes less effective at cybersecurity theater?
The bloated CISA of 2024 had staff dedicated to election security communications, critical infrastructure outreach, public-private partnerships, international coordination, and dozens of other mission areas that sound important but have tenuous connections to actual cybersecurity outcomes. A leaner agency forced to focus on core technical capabilities might deliver better security with fewer people.
The Contractor Knowledge Problem
Amélie Koran's observation about losing specialized contractors during shutdowns points to another systemic issue: the federal government's addiction to institutional knowledge that exists outside the institution. When you can't hire permanent staff with competitive salaries, you end up dependent on contractors who understand your environment better than your own employees.
This creates a bizarre inversion where the people who best understand federal systems and their vulnerabilities work for companies with profit motives and competing loyalties. The "brain drain" isn't just about people leaving government,it's about people never joining government in the first place because the private sector offers better compensation and less bureaucratic friction.
But this problem isn't solved by throwing more money at CISA or any other agency. It's solved by fundamentally restructuring how federal cybersecurity operations work. Instead of trying to compete with private sector salaries for specialized talent, the government should focus on creating systems so robust and automated that they don't require an army of specialized operators.
The goal shouldn't be to hire more cybersecurity experts,it should be to build cybersecurity systems that don't need experts.
This means investing in automation, standardization, and architectural simplification rather than adding more oversight layers and compliance frameworks. It means accepting that some government systems should be replaced entirely rather than patched indefinitely. And it means measuring success by security outcomes rather than process compliance.
The Case Against More Resources
The reflexive response to cybersecurity problems is always "more resources." More funding, more staff, more oversight, more frameworks. But what if resource constraints are actually forcing better decisions?
Consider the private sector equivalent. Startups often have better cybersecurity practices than enterprise companies, not despite resource constraints but because of them. When you can't hire a 50-person security team, you're forced to build security into your architecture from the beginning. When you can't afford enterprise security tools, you have to think creatively about open-source alternatives and automation.
The federal government's resource abundance has enabled decades of security debt. Agencies could always hire contractors to manage legacy systems rather than replacing them. They could always add another layer of monitoring rather than fixing the underlying problems. They could always create new oversight processes rather than streamlining existing ones.
Resource scarcity might force the kind of architectural thinking that resource abundance has prevented.
The most secure federal systems aren't the ones with the biggest cybersecurity budgets,they're the ones built with security as a core constraint from day one. The Pentagon's move toward zero-trust architecture isn't happening because they got more cybersecurity funding; it's happening because they realized their current approach was fundamentally unscalable.
What Success Actually Looks Like
Real federal cybersecurity success wouldn't look like what we have now. It would look like:
Fewer people doing cybersecurity, but with systems so well-architected that fewer people are needed. Standardized, hardened platforms that reduce the attack surface instead of endless customization and legacy integration. Automated responses to common threats instead of manual investigation and remediation. Clear accountability for security outcomes rather than diffused responsibility across multiple agencies and oversight bodies.
The current system produces impressive statistics: thousands of vulnerabilities identified, hundreds of security assessments completed, dozens of new frameworks published. But it doesn't produce the thing that actually matters: reliable protection of critical government functions and data.
This is why the CISA staffing cuts might be a blessing in disguise. A smaller agency forced to focus on core technical missions might achieve better security outcomes than a larger agency spread across dozens of politically motivated initiatives. The question isn't whether federal cybersecurity has enough resources,it's whether it's optimized for the right objectives.
The Real Choice
The federal cybersecurity establishment faces a choice: continue optimizing for political theater and bureaucratic survival, or start optimizing for actual security outcomes. The current hand-wringing about staffing cuts and resource constraints suggests they're choosing the former.
But there's an alternative path. Accept that resource constraints are permanent and use them as forcing functions for better architectural decisions. Stop measuring success by activity metrics and start measuring it by outcome metrics. Acknowledge that some legacy systems can't be secured and must be replaced rather than endlessly patched.
The goal of federal cybersecurity shouldn't be to create an impenetrable fortress,it should be to create systems resilient enough that individual breaches don't cascade into systemic failures.
This requires admitting that the current approach isn't working, even when it generates impressive compliance statistics and keeps oversight committees happy. It requires accepting that smaller, focused teams might outperform larger, diffused organizations. And it requires optimizing for security outcomes rather than political sustainability.
The alternative is more of the same: bigger budgets funding the same broken approaches, more staff implementing the same ineffective processes, and more oversight generating the same meaningless metrics. We can continue this theater indefinitely, but we shouldn't mistake it for actual cybersecurity.
Federal cybersecurity isn't stagnating,it's operating exactly as designed. The question is whether we're brave enough to design something better.
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Tags: federal-cybersecurity, cisa, government-it, cybersecurity-policy, organizational-design
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