Ex-NSA Chief Paul Nakasone Has a Warning for the Tech World

At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas on Friday, Nakasone tried to thread the needle in a politically fraught moment while hinting at major changes for the tech community around the corner.

Lily Hay Newman 

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The Trump administration's radical changes to United States fiscal policy, foreign relations, and global strategy—combined with mass firings across the federal government—have created uncertainty around US cybersecurity priorities that was on display this week at two of the country's most prominent digital security conferences in Las Vegas. “We are not retreating, we're advancing in a new direction,” 

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief information officer Robert Costello said on Thursday during a critical infrastructure defense panel at Black Hat.

As in other parts of the federal government, the Trump administration has been combing intelligence and cybersecurity agencies to remove officials seen as disloyal to its agenda. Alongside these shifts, the White House has also been hostile to former US cybersecurity officials.

 In April, for example, Trump specifically directed all departments and agencies to revoke the security clearance of former CISA director Chris Krebs. And last week, following criticism from far-right activist Laura Loomer, the secretary of the Army rescinded an academic appointment that former CISA director Jen Easterly had been scheduled to fill at West Point. Amid all of this, former US National Security Agency and Cyber Command chief Paul Nakasone spoke with Defcon founder Jeff Moss in an onstage discussion on Friday, focusing on AI, cybercrime, and the importance of partnerships in digital defense.