Jen Easterly, President Joe Biden's nominee for the director position at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was confirmed in a unanimous Senate vote Monday.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, described Easterly as a cybersecurity professional with military, civil service and industry experience and noted that they will work together in efforts to address urgent cyber and physical threats to critical U.S. infrastructure.

Easterly, the second Senate-confirmed director of CISA since the agency was formed in 2018, has led Morgan Stanley's Fusion Resilience Center since January 2020 and established the financial services company's Cybersecurity Fusion Center when she came to the firm in 2017.

She held a two-decade career at the U.S. Army, where she stood up the military branch's first cyber battalion, and served at the National Security Agency (NSA) as deputy for counterterrorism.

CNN reports Easterly will take the helm at CISA amid the series of growing cybersecurity and ransomware attacks plaguing national security and targeting vital industries such as food, gas and transportation.

In December 2020, federal agencies, including the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security, experienced data breaches after a cyberattack on the SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management products. 

On May 7th, a ransomware incident affected the refined gas delivery operations of Colonial Pipeline and led to fuel shortages at airports and gas stations on the East Coast.

FireEye announced on Monday that the company has appointed Erin Joe as senior vice president of Strategy and Alliances. As SVP, Joe will lead strategy development and implementation. She will also be responsible for crucial alliances in both the public and private sectors. 

“Erin has had an outstanding career at the FBI, playing a critical role in defining and executing national cyber defense strategies. Her experience driving and implementing organizational change puts her in a unique position to help us meet the challenges ahead as we address the intensifying threat landscape,” commented John Watters, FireEye president and chief operating officer.

Before joining FireEye, Joe was a top-ranking FBI executive developing federal cyber response strategies in partnership with the private sector. She worked in the Senior Executive Service for six years. She recently worked in the FBI's Office of Private Sector, where she improved intelligence sharing and threat preparedness with Fortune 500 company C-suite executives and U.S. and foreign government counterparts.

During her time as section chief and deputy assistant director in the FBI’s Cyber Division, her efforts to counter cyber adversaries included executing synchronized actions with numerous global partners.

Joe served as the director of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) under the director of National Intelligence. In the role, Joe worked with the Intelligence Community (IC) to develop cyber threat intelligence, strategies, lessons learned, emergency readiness, crisis management and incident responses.

Over her 25 year FBI career, Joe has been a transformational leader implementing and guiding organizational change. She co-authored and implemented the FBI's first comprehensive, integrated strategy for Cyber, Counterterrorism, and Counterintelligence,

“I have collaborated with the Mandiant team for many years as we have shared the same aim of countering cyber threats posed by the worst threat actors,” said Joe. “Having worked closely with the security industry over the years, I believe there was no better place to apply my skills and experience than Mandiant.”