Noem Fires 24 FEMA Employees Over Cyber Lapses

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has fired two dozen employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on the disaster response agency.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday evening that Noem had terminated 24 FEMA workers, including top officials, for having “brazenly neglected basic security protocols.”

Among the 24 terminated employees were FEMA Chief Information Officer Charles Armstrong and Chief Information Security Officer Gregory Edwards.

Noem did not specify how the employees failed to implement proper security procedures, but said no Americans were directly affected.

The DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer discovered several serious security lapses that allowed a threat actor to access FEMA’s network. Those lapses resulted from FEMA workers’ efforts not to fix the root problem.

“Instead, they avoided scheduled inspections and lied to officials about the scope and scale of the cyber vulnerabilities,” the DHS press release stated.