Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review – Krebs on Security

The Trump administration’s second term has been marked by a rapid-fire series of policy shifts that threaten to weaken America’s ability to address critical technology challenges. From cybersecurity and privacy to combating disinformation and corruption, these changes have come so quickly that many Americans may not even be aware of their full scope and impact.

Free Speech Under Fire

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that social media companies and Big Tech conspired to silence conservative voices during the 2020 election. In response, his administration has pursued policies that many critics argue actually restrict free speech for ordinary Americans and foreign visitors.

In September, Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), directing federal law enforcement to target “anti-American” activities. According to extensive reporting by journalist Ken Klippenstein, this directive focuses on groups opposing law enforcement, supporting mass migration, adhering to “radical gender ideology,” and expressing anti-American, anti-capitalist, or anti-Christian views.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has taken additional steps, ordering the FBI to compile lists of Americans whose activities “may constitute domestic terrorism” and establishing a “cash reward system” to encourage public reporting of suspected domestic terrorist activity. The definition of domestic terrorism under this policy includes opposition to law enforcement and support for “radical gender ideology.”

The administration is also imposing new social media restrictions on tourists. U.S. Customs and Border Protection will soon require visitors from countries like Britain, Australia, France, and Japan to provide five years of social media history, along with email addresses from the past decade and phone numbers used in the past five years.

These requirements align with Executive Order 14161, which grants broad new authority to identify “foreign terrorist and public safety threats.” Civil rights groups warn this vague language could enable a renewed travel ban and expanded visa denials based on perceived ideology, potentially targeting individuals based on political views, national origin, or religion. At least 35 nations now face some form of U.S. travel restrictions.

Crime and Corruption

The administration has taken several steps that critics say weaken anti-corruption efforts. In February, Trump ordered executive branch agencies to stop enforcing the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, freezing foreign bribery investigations and allowing for “remedial actions” of past enforcement actions deemed “inappropriate.”

The White House also disbanded the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and KleptoCapture Task Force, units that had proven effective in corruption cases and seizing assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs. Resources have been diverted away from investigating white-collar crime.

Attorney General Bondi dissolved the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, created during Trump’s first term to counter foreign government influence on American politics. In March, several national security agencies halted work on a coordinated effort to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation, and cyberattacks, despite warnings from U.S. intelligence about escalating Russian aggression.

The Justice Department’s decision to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams led to multiple senior officials resigning in protest and created chaos at the Southern District of New York, historically one of the nation’s most aggressive offices for pursuing public corruption cases.

Cryptocurrency and Financial Regulation

The administration has shifted the Securities and Exchange Commission away from enforcement toward supporting the cryptocurrency industry, which has been plagued by scams and fraud. The SEC has dropped major cases against Coinbase, Binance, and others.

Perhaps most troubling is the case of Justin Sun, founder of the cryptocurrency company Tron. In 2023, the SEC charged Sun with fraud and market manipulation. After Sun invested $75 million in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial tokens and became the top holder of the $TRUMP memecoin, the SEC dropped its lawsuit in February 2025. Sun then took Tron public through a reverse merger arranged by Dominari Securities, a firm with Trump family ties.

Democratic lawmakers have urged the SEC to investigate what they call “concerning ties to President Trump and his family” as potential conflicts of interest and foreign influence.

The administration has also granted clemency to cryptocurrency executives. In October, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, who had pleaded guilty to failing to prevent money laundering and served a four-month sentence. Shortly after his pardon, Zhao was central to a deal that put the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial on the map.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has explicitly stated that “most crypto tokens are not securities,” while the administration has directed agencies to expand 401(k) access to private equity and crypto assets, despite their high risk and historical restrictions for retail investors.

Corporate Transparency and Financial Oversight

The Treasury suspended the Corporate Transparency Act, a law requiring companies to reveal their real owners. Finance experts warn this suspension will bring back shell companies and “open the floodgates of dirty money” through the U.S., including funds from drug gangs, human traffickers, and fraud groups.

The administration’s clemency decisions have created a pattern of freed criminals committing new offenses. Jonathan Braun, whose sentence for drug trafficking was commuted during Trump’s first term, was found guilty in 2025 of violating supervised release and faces new charges. Eliyahu Weinstein, who received a commutation for running a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced in November 2025 to 37 years for running another Ponzi scheme.

The administration has also granted clemency to white-collar criminals like David Gentile, a private equity executive sentenced for securities and wire fraud, and Trevor Milton, the Nikola founder sentenced for defrauding investors. The message appears to be that financial crimes against ordinary investors are not a priority.

Federal Cybersecurity

President Trump fired the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Chris Krebs, for stating publicly that the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history. The administration revoked Krebs’s security clearances and ordered a Justice Department investigation into his election security work.

Trump also dismissed all 15 members of the Cyber Safety Review Board, a nonpartisan government entity established in 2022 to investigate major cybersecurity failures. At the time, the board was compiling a report on Chinese government-backed digital intrusions into U.S. telecommunications providers.

CISA has lost roughly a third of its workforce amid mass layoffs and deferred resignations. When the government shutdown began in October, CISA laid off even more employees and furloughed 65 percent of remaining staff, leaving only 900 employees working without pay.

The Department of Homeland Security has reassigned CISA cyber specialists to jobs supporting the president’s deportation agenda. The White House plans to cut an additional $491 million from CISA’s budget next year, targeting programs focused on international affairs and countering misinformation.

Press Freedom and Information Access

President Trump has filed multibillion-dollar lawsuits against major news outlets including ABC, BBC, CBS parent company Paramount, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times over coverage he claims portrayed him negatively.

The president signed an executive order aimed at slashing public subsidies to PBS and NPR, alleging “bias” in their reporting. Congress approved a request to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Brendan Carr, the president’s pick to run the Federal Communications Commission, initially pledged to “dismantle the censorship cartel,” but the FCC reopened complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC over their 2024 election coverage.

Trump seized control of the White House Correspondents’ Association, inviting 32 additional media outlets, mostly conservative or right-wing organizations. He also barred The Associated Press from the White House over their refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Under Trump appointee Kari Lake, the U.S. Agency for Global Media moved to dismantle Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, networks that served as credible news sources behind authoritarian lines.

The administration fired most people involved in processing Freedom of Information Act requests, making it harder for journalists and the public to request government records and hold leaders accountable.

Consumer Protection and Privacy

President Trump ordered staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to stop most work. The CFPB has sued major financial institutions for violating consumer protection laws and has returned nearly $18 billion to Americans in compensation or canceled debts.

The administration plans to fire up to 90 percent of CFPB staff, though a federal appeals court ruling has temporarily blocked these firings. The CFPB’s acting director is Russell Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, who has withdrawn a data broker protection rule intended to limit the sale of Americans’ personal information.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s own report blaming Trump-era deregulation for the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the administration’s banking regulators have loosened capital requirements and stripped risk categories from supervisory frameworks, potentially setting up another banking crisis.

The administration has built a central database of all U.S. citizens, planning to use it during elections to verify voters’ identity and citizenship status. This database was built by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Governmental Efficiency.

DOGE and Data Security

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, accessed sensitive data from multiple federal databases, including those at the Social Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Personnel Management, and Treasury Department. DOGE employees used artificial intelligence to surveil federal agency communications for hostility to Trump’s agenda.

DOGE workers circumvented security measures designed to detect and prevent database misuse, including incident response protocols, auditing, and change-tracking mechanisms. An IT expert at the National Labor Relations Board alleges DOGE employees downloaded gigabytes of data using short-lived accounts configured to leave few traces.

While DOGE claimed to have reduced “wasteful” federal spending by more than $200 billion, independent reviews suggest the actual savings were closer to $2 billion. The administration fired at least 17 inspectors general tasked with identifying waste, fraud, and abuse, including several agencies with open investigations into Musk’s companies.

Where DOGE is now remains unclear, though the White House claims it no longer exists despite having more than half a year left on its charter. The question of who retains access to federal agency data fed into AI tools by DOGE remains unanswered.

Tags: #TrumpAdministration #Cybersecurity #FreeSpeech #Corruption #Cryptocurrency #DOGE #Privacy #PressFreedom #ConsumerProtection #FederalAgencies #DataSecurity #Immigration #TravelRestrictions #SocialMedia #FinancialRegulation #WhiteCollarCrime #ElectionSecurity #TechnologyPolicy #GovernmentReform #NationalSecurity

Viral Sentences:

• The Trump administration has pursued a staggering range of policy pivots this past year that threaten to weaken the nation’s ability to address technology challenges
• President Trump has repeatedly claimed that a primary reason he lost the 2020 election was that social media and Big Tech companies had conspired to silence conservative voices
• The White House also disbanded the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and KleptoCapture Task Force — units which proved their value in corruption cases
• The administration is also planning to impose social media restrictions on tourists as the president continues to ramp up travel restrictions
• The Trump administration said it planned to fire up to 90 percent of all CFPB staff
• The stated goal of DOGE was to reduce bureaucracy and to massively cut costs — mainly by eliminating funding for a raft of federal initiatives
• The administration fired at least 17 inspectors general at federal agencies — the very people tasked with actually identifying and stopping waste, fraud and abuse

Viral Words: Trump, administration, cybersecurity, privacy, corruption, cryptocurrency, DOGE, free speech, press freedom, consumer protection, federal agencies, data security, immigration, travel restrictions, social media, financial regulation, white-collar crime, election security, technology policy, government reform, national security

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