Federal cyber agency reevaluating role in countering election disinformation

Brandon Wales, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said Wednesday that the agency’s involvement in countering election disinformation and misinformation was under review.

Wales described the decision made by the agency to stand up a “rumor control” page ahead of the 2020 election as “controversial,” and vowed to get “back to basics” and concentrate on cyber and physical security aspects of elections.

His comments came after former CISA Director Christopher Krebs was fired by former President Trump for both standing up the rumor control webpage and for CISA putting out a statement with other election officials describing the 2020 election as the “most secure in American history.”