The fate of the Biden administration’s late-hour cybersecurity-inspired executive order is, at the moment, executive order not found.

Biden’s Jan. 16 directive, mandating practices like security attestations for government software vendors, leads to an error page. The wide-ranging EO, titled “Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” however, has not yet made the list of the new Trump administration’s executive-order revocations.

To IT pros who spoke with us: Biden’s order demonstrated a helpful, tone-setting announcement of security priorities for public and private sectors, even if it was a hopeful “Hail Mary” heave to some.

“There is always the possibility that the incoming administration will look at some of the directives in this executive order and decide to rescind them or change them. But…you’re on your way out, and you’ve decided that these are the actions that you want to take or put in place as you exit, and you hope that some of them stick around,” Tim Erlin, VP of product at Wallarm, told IT Brew, days before Trump’s inauguration.

In a cyber-order including priorities like combating fraud and securing government connections, one Biden priority featuring “pretty aggressive” deadlines, according to Ryan McCarthy, senior director at consultancy Protiviti, included software supply-chain security—defined in the order with the directive “Operationalizing Transparency and Security in Third-Party Software Supply Chains.”

Read the rest here.—BH

New boss, not quite the same as the old boss.

In a move sure to frustrate many in the cybersecurity world, President Trump on Monday summarily dismissed the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB).

The CSRB decision was part of a larger order affecting the agency communicated via a memo from DHS Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman. In the directive, Huffman instructed the department to act to effect “the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately.”

Any further work, Huffman continued, would only be approved if it were found to be “advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland and support DHS’s strategic priorities.”

Outlook not so good. Long-term subjective determinations of advancing the mission aside, the short-term, knock-on effects of the firings could prove damaging to US national security. The CSRB was investigating a purported Chinese hack of US government telecommunications from last summer. That investigation is likely paused for now.

One victim of the hack, Trump ally Rep. Mark Green, said in a statement to The Record that he was hopeful the president would keep security in mind. It’s of specific interest to Green beyond his targeting as he is the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Read more here.—EH

Kathleen Kramer, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of San Diego, has already begun her term as the 2025 president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

IEEE calls itself “the world’s largest technical and professional organization dedicated to emerging tech,” and IT Brew caught up with Kramer at the org’s booth at CES to talk about the org’s recent Impact of Technology in 2025 report. That survey found 58% of respondents think AI will be the most important technology this year—but also that mass enterprise adoption isn’t quite around the corner, as around one in five reported their orgs are rethinking their strategy or only beginning to explore it.

This interview has been lightly edited for content and clarity.

What did you see as the most important finding in IEEE’s recent tech trends report?

AI was all everybody could talk about last year. This year, 2025, is supposed to be the year of quantum [computing]—but I think we’re still waiting for real stuff, real activity on quantum. Whereas AI, you have genuine products, you have genuine activity.

From the point of view of the IEEE president, AI has helped converge and enhance many things that were kind of dying on the vine, because you can’t succeed at them with AI unless you have these things. Up until, say, two or three years ago, it was all software, software, software, software, software—and so all the hardware types, you had to be super special or delightful, or you weren’t getting any time. If you talked to who’s hiring, they were, “Hi, we’re hiring software.”

To really do interesting things, you have very complex algorithms, and you need new hardware. And so that’s for my people.

Keep reading here.—TM