The White House has officially nominated Sean Plankey to become the next director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a component of the Department of Homeland Security.
The administration’s pick of Plankey to head CISA had been the subject of off-the-record talk among cybersecurity professionals for the past few weeks.
Plankey served at the tail end of the first Trump administration as assistant director for infrastructure security at CISA – an appointment that was announced by the White House in October 2020.
Before that, he was principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) at the Energy Department beginning in November 2019, and prior to then he was director for cyber policy on the White House National Security Council.
Plankey, who is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, also was deputy CIO for Naval Intelligence, supported U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and logged two years at the U.S. Cyber Command.
In between the two Trump administrations, Plankey has racked up considerable private sector experience including as public sector chief technology officer at DataRobot, chief architect for critical infrastructure at BedRock Systems, and general manager of Indigo Vault.
