The Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) is losing workers as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown continues, the agency’s acting director, Nick Andersen, told Congress on Wednesday.
Speaking before the House Homeland Security Committee during a hearing to address the now five-week shutdown, Andersen said that CISA has seen a “continued flow of people out the door, in particular as we continue to see the effects of the shutdown.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., pointed to significant reductions in CISA’s workforce over the past year, with the most recent headcount putting the agency at 2,389 employees. That’s down 2,540 – 6% – from May 2025 and 3,300 from January 2025.
In response to a question from Thompson about how the agency is faring with limited staff, Andersen stated that his primary focus is “the impact on the employees that are serving mission right now … [and] the choices that they’re having to make every single day between continuing to serve their nation, pay their bills, and take care of their families.”
Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee said that more than 100,000 DHS employees have missed full paychecks.
In his written testimony, Andersen told lawmakers that around just 40% of CISA’s workforce is continuing to work during the shutdown due to the limited number of employees legally allowed to work without pay.
The agency’s limited functions are focused on “protecting life and property, or functions that [are] otherwise excepted or exempted,” according to the testimony.
Andersen said Wednesday that while critical functions at CISA – such as intelligence sharing – have continued, the agency’s capacity to do so “is becoming exceedingly strained.”
“In a single day, just a couple of weeks ago, we received six resignation notices from the highly technical subject matter experts we have in places like our threat [hunting team],” Andersen said.
“That’s not a sustainable model going forward,” he added. “At some point, the compounding risk within this dynamic threat landscape is going to cause real damage to Americans.”
Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., noted that while CISA’s functions are significantly scaled back, the agency has been closing or reducing many of its teams and operations over the past year.
“You said, planned engagements with critical partners are on hold all because of the shutdown,” Walkinshaw said. “But here’s the irony: Long before the shutdown, your agency’s workforce was gutted, advisory committees and stakeholder engagements were shut down, information sharing centers eliminated.”
Andersen said in his written testimony that most of CISA’s proactive services, planning, and industry and stakeholder engagements are “paused or significantly scaled back due to the limited number of people allowed to work.”
“Planned engagements with critical partners are on hold, and our ability to respond to emerging cyber incidents may be reduced due to these shutdown limitations, increasing risk not only across the federal enterprise, but across all critical infrastructure sectors. As we have said before, CISA is shut down, but our adversaries are not,” Andersen wrote.
Earlier this week, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as DHS secretary by the Senate. During his confirmation hearing, he committed to bolstering CISA’s workforce “if we can find the right people to staff or to make sure that we’re mission capable.”