Infosec in brief On August 29, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency fired its CISO, CIO, and 22 other staff for incompetence but insisted it wasn't in response to an online attack. New material suggests FEMA's claim may be false. According to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, an audit found serious security problems at FEMA and revealed that "entrenched bureaucrats" had lied about the agency's security preparedness. "These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens' personal data, so I terminated them immediately," she said. Crucially, Noem said no data had been lost but it appears that's not the case. According to a presentation passed to Nextgov, attackers broke into FEMA in June using stolen credentials to access a Citrix system. The attackers then uploaded data from FEMA's Region 6 servers, covering Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. According to the documents, FEMA didn't discover the attack until July. By July, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was telling agencies to patch against so-called CitrixBleed 2 attacks that exploited a CVSS 9.3 bug in Netscaler's ADC and Gateway platforms that would allow miscreants to steal sensitive data such as session tokens and bypass multi-factor authentication. There were warnings that the bug was being exploited back in June, but it seems they weren't heeded. Now, it appears, FEMA's IT department is getting a compl...
CISA sounds alarm over TP-Link wireless routers under attack
The Register
·Iain Thomson
·Published Sep 8, 2025
·Updated
Affected Software
1 affected component
Citrix Citrix system
Frequently Asked Questions
1
What is the main topic of this article?
The article discusses security vulnerabilities and attacks on TP-Link wireless routers, along with recent staffing changes at FEMA.
2
What security implications are discussed?
The article highlights the potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with TP-Link routers being under attack.
3
What products or software are affected?
The affected products include TP-Link wireless routers and Citrix systems.
4
What event led to the firing of FEMA staff according to the article?
The firing of FEMA's CISO, CIO, and 22 staff members was attributed to incompetence, though claims of an online attack as a cause may be disputed.
5
Is there a connection between the router attacks and FEMA's staff firings?
The article implies there may be a connection or at least speculation surrounding the timing of the router attacks and FEMA's leadership changes.