The Senate confirmed Sean Cairncross to serve as national cyber director in a 59-35 vote on Saturday night, making him the first Senate-approved cybersecurity official of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Cairncross is a former Republican National Committee official and was CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation agency during Trump’s first term. As national cyber director, he will be tasked with overseeing an office first stood up under the Biden administration, which serves as the key White House cyber policy interlocutor across federal agencies and Capitol Hill.
“I want to thank President Trump for this opportunity. It is an incredible honor to serve our country and this President as the National Cyber Director,” Cairncross said in a statement. “As the cyber strategic environment continues to evolve, we must ensure our policy efforts and capabilities deliver results for our national security and the American people. The United States must dominate the cyber domain through strong collaboration across departments and agencies, as well as private industry. Under President Trump’s leadership, we will enter a new era of effective cybersecurity policy.”
Cairncross’s responsibilities will include coordinating cybersecurity efforts between various government agencies, developing and implementing national cybersecurity policies and advising the president on critical cyber issues. His nomination was announced in February, and he advanced out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee in late June.
In his nomination hearing held earlier this summer, some Democratic lawmakers appeared skeptical of Cairncross, amid concerns he’d be backing an administration that has cut many of its federal cyber workers as part of efforts to end purported government spending waste under the Department of Government Efficiency.
“Just be honest about it. You can’t say you care about an increasing and more sophisticated set of attacks while cutting the very people who help defend against those attacks,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. told Cairncross at the time. “You’re going to be the guy. If we have our cyber 9/11, you’re going to be the guy who’s sitting there saying, ‘Holy crap, we just cut all this money.’”
Cairncross does not have direct cybersecurity policy experience, but said his past roles involved engagements with different parts of the U.S. cyber community.
“Sure, senator, it’s true. I don’t have a technical background in cyber,” he told committee Ranking Member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. in his nomination hearing. He added, “But in my roles running private organizations and national party committees, I’ve been on the user side of this. We’ve had to deal with foreign nation attacks on our systems. We’ve worked with the FBI and the intelligence community to learn about them, to stop them and to monitor those attacks.”
In June, a group of former cybersecurity and national security officials sent a letter to the Senate Homeland Security Committee expressing support for Cairncross’s nomination.
The Office of the National Cyber Director was stood up during the Biden administration following recommendations from a congressionally authorized cyber policy body. ONCD has notably overseen the rollout of a sweeping national cybersecurity strategy meant to shore up U.S. cyber defenses and rejuvenate federal agency oversight of various critical sectors that support the nation.
Cairncross is the third confirmed leader to the office. Chris Inglis was its first director when it was founded four years ago. Kemba Walden then led the office in an acting capacity, followed by Harry Coker, who was confirmed in December 2023.
As of Coker’s departure, ONCD has been working through sweeping regulatory harmonization efforts to help streamline reporting rules for organizations when they’re hit by a cyberattack. The office is also trying to transition federal cyber jobs toward a skills-based hiring structure.
ONCD has also queued up a forthcoming software liability regime that aims to legally hold software makers accountable for lax security practices. Chief among ONCD’s efforts has been a goal to boost the size of the U.S. cyber workforce.
