CISA mutes own website, shifts routine cyber alerts to Musk’s X, RSS, email
- Reference: 1747076666
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/05/12/cisa_vulnerabilities_updates_x/
- Source link:
Up until now, its Cybersecurity Alerts and Advisories website has been posting a variety of bulletins, including known vulnerabilities under attack, flaws found in everything from industrial control systems to smart TVs, and warnings about specific products. Starting today, many of these updates will be distributed via email, RSS, and the social media site better known as Twitter that's owned by the President's personal billionaire éminence grease Elon Musk.
CISA wants this critical information to get the attention it deserves
"The focus of our Cybersecurity Alerts & Advisories webpage will now be on urgent information tied to emerging threats or major cyber activity," the org [1]said . "CISA wants this critical information to get the attention it deserves and ensure it is easier to find."
IT admins and others who want to know are advised to sign up for [2]CISA's email notifications to stay informed. Some updates will still be available via RSS, though users tracking the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog must now subscribe to that topic through GovDelivery. [3]X will also carry general cybersecurity updates. We've asked CISA for further comment.
One has to wonder if this policy shift is linked to [4]staff cuts at the agency, which began in March under the direction of Musk's DOGE - a Trump-blessed project to trim costs at various federal agencies that oversee the Tesla tycoon's businesses.
[5]
While some CISA workers [6]have left , more layoffs are expected, as President Trump's wish-list budget for 2026 proposes slashing CISA's funding by about [7]17 percent . Former agency chief Jen Easterly has publicly criticized the recommendation, and [8]described it as harmful to America.
[9]
[10]
"In a world where we are facing more serious, more complex, more dynamic threats, in a world where cyber crime damages are expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion by the end of this year, in a world where actors from the Chinese People's Liberation Army are burrowed into our most sensitive critical infrastructure, that is a real loss for America to see the capability and capacity of America's cyber defense agency being undermined," she told the RSA Conference last month.
[11]CISA slammed for role in 'censorship industrial complex' as budget faces possible $500M cut
[12]Ex-CISA chief decries cuts as Trump demands loyalty above all else
[13]Homeland Security boss says CISA has gone off the rails, vows to set it right
[14]Chris Krebs loses Global Entry membership amid Trump feud
At the same time, US government bodies are increasingly moving more of their communications to Elon Musk's social network. In February, following two major aviation accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board [15]announced it would no longer distribute updates about press conferences or investigations via email, and would instead post all such information to its X account.
Then in April, the Social Security Administration began cutting staff from its communications office and told regional offices they would no longer issue press releases or "Dear Colleague" letters. Instead, agency updates will now be posted on X.
"If you’re used to getting press releases and Dear Colleague letters, you might want to subscribe to the official SSA X account, so you can stay up to date with agency news," [16]said SSA Midwest-West (MWW) Regional Commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis said at the time. "I know this probably sounds very foreign to you — it did to me as well — and not what we are used to, but we are in different times now."
[17]
The SSA is still issuing some press releases on its website, such as information about the [18]most popular baby names for 2024. (Olivia and Liam, if you're curious.)
280 characters isn't a lot of space to convey information, but maybe these agencies will get a group discount on X Premium for longer tweets. Either way, it's good news for one of Trump's more-favored billionaires. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2025/05/12/update-how-cisa-shares-cyber-related-alerts-and-notifications
[2] https://www.cisa.gov/about/contact-us/subscribe-updates-cisa
[3] https://twitter.com/CISACyber
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/08/cisa_cuts_threat_intel/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aCJve57sa6JUvdGChK0O0wAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/22/top_cisa_officials_jump_ship/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/06/cisa_budget_cuts/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/30/excisa_boss_agency_cuts/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aCJve57sa6JUvdGChK0O0wAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aCJve57sa6JUvdGChK0O0wAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/06/cisa_budget_cuts/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/30/excisa_boss_agency_cuts/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/30/noem_put_cisa_on_mission/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/chris_krebs_global_entry/
[15] https://x.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1885734974298435943
[16] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2025/04/ssa-shifts-to-x-posts-for-official-messaging-after-cuts-to-communications-staff/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aCJve57sa6JUvdGChK0O0wAAAFQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/#2025-05-09
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It amazed me when many US gov't agencies used twitter. Not amazed they are forced to use the xitter.
Taking over the sewer pipe of propaganda.
Big up RSS
In an age of toxic social media algorithms and billionaire gatekeepers, RSS seems more relevant than ever.
Re: Big up RSS
RSS is definitely the way forward for information such as this. It shouldn't be a big problem to simply automatically echo the RSS feed to Twitter and other social media networks if for some reason someone prefers that.
If CISA genuinely are short of manpower, then they don't have the people to manage any sort of social media presence that allows responses (where you have to monitor for and deal with troublesome idiots). Just publish an RSS feed and have scripts automatically echo this out to several different social media networks on accounts that don't allow responses.
From a user perspective, it's easy to write scripts which simply wget the RSS feed, apply some rules to extract information of relevance to you that you need to know about right now , and have it appear in the notification area on your PC. Your RSS reader (you should already have one anyway if you are at all sensible) can read the entire feed for you to scan over and do a quick review on later when you have time.
I don't know who has time these days to try to keep up with things on Twitter. I certainly don't.
"Going forward"
The first sentence of the article is just as clear without the horrible "going forward" or the better, but equally superfluous "in future".
I hope when democrats take back power
One of their first executive orders is to ban any federal government agency from using Twitter in any fashion. You should be able to KNOW the information is coming from the government by the .gov website. On X anyone can set up an account named something official sounding and release whatever they want, and people are just supposed to be able to tell those apart from the legit accounts.
Plus the democrats should want the government to avoid any unnecessary connection with Musk. Heck, if Trump is successful in his aim of deporting naturalized citizens who are "enemies from within" then Elon Musk would be first on my list of deportees when MAGA is thrown out on their ass. He more than qualifies as an "enemy from within".
I wish this was a joke...
Posting important information mainly on a social media site is lunatic, pure and simple.
If they want to reach ludites like me, they would need to post it here on El Reg - El Reg *IS* my social media!
DEI gone mad
Musk's an African American, and they're biasing government policy to help him.
So... Trump will be stopping this as part of an anti-DEI drive, right? Right?