The cybersecurity industry is quiet after Trump canceled SentinelOne's security clearances on April 9 for hiring Chris Krebs; SentinelOne says it will cooperate
The cybersecurity industry has gone mostly quiet after President Donald Trump took action against one of its prominent members.
It also lands amid a weakening of the public-private cybersecurity pipeline: outside experts had already pulled back from a CISA-linked program amid political backlash, and later coverage documented a sharp reduction in CISA staffing.
First-order effects
SentinelOne must manage the loss of its security clearances while publicly committing to cooperate, making its relationship with the federal security establishment an immediate business issue.
The industry's muted response signals that peer companies are treating the action as politically sensitive rather than as a routine dispute over a vendor's security posture.
Second-order effects
Cybersecurity vendors and outside experts working with government agencies may reassess the reputational and commercial exposure of employing or publicly backing figures drawn into political conflict.
A quieter industry response can further constrain the candid exchange between private security firms and government partners that ecosystem defense depends on.
Third-order effects
If clearance access is increasingly perceived as contingent on political alignment, the security-to-policy pipeline could narrow as firms and practitioners separate operational cyber work from public-policy disputes.
The trend: This is one data point in the politicization of public-private cybersecurity cooperation, where personnel choices and public criticism can increasingly shape access to government security relationships.
This is very concerning for our field/industry. Only the Cyber Threat Alliance speaks up against what Trump is doing to SentinelOne? — We have failed in our job. — Bow down before the one you serve I guess... #infosec #Cybersecurity
If the industry is going to quietly get in line on this, which is to be expected at this point, it's up to journalists to shine a light on the fact. Good article. [embedded post]
Yesterday the Trump administration took aim at @thekrebscycle.bsky.social and @sentinelone.com over Trump's longstanding beef with Krebs saying the 2020 election was legitimate. So @raphae.li asked more than 30 major cybersecurity firms and trade groups what they had to say. He…
New: @ajvicens.bsky.social and I asked 33 leading information security companies for their reaction to Trump's order stripping @sentinelone.com employees and executives of their security clearances. — Not one had anything to say about it. — www.reuters.com/world/us/cyb...
“The EO served no purpose other than to settle old political scores and distract the public from his assault on the economy, which has been an unmitigated disaster,” Thompson said. — cyberscoop.com/trump-chris-...
The Trump administration is now going after its first cybersecurity company, stripping @sentinelone.com of “any active security clearance.” — Will the infosec industry do any better than the legal industry in showing solidarity? — www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/ ... [image]
Trump signed a memorandum Wednesday declaring former CISA leader Chris Krebs a “significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his government authority.” Krebs debunked baseless claims of 2020 election fraud, for which Trump fired him. cyberscoop.com/trump-chris-...
Per Reuters, one unnamed cybersecurity executive said that by going after someone as high-profile as his own former CISA chief, Trump was cowing the industry into silence. — “If they are willing to crush Krebs, what do you think they'll do to me or others like me?” he said, spe…