Nick Andersen
Acting Director, CISA
Nick Andersen took over as CISA’s acting director in February 2026, stepping up from his role as the agency’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity. He leads CISA’s mission to understand, manage and reduce risk to the cyber and physical infrastructure Americans rely on every day.
Andersen’s background spans nearly every corner of federal cybersecurity. Before CISA, he served as principal deputy assistant secretary at the Energy Department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, and as federal cybersecurity lead and senior cybersecurity adviser to the federal CIO at the White House.
Earlier in his career, Andersen served as CIO for Navy Intelligence and head of the Office of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Systems and Technologies.at the Coast Guard. He’s also a decorated Marine Corps veteran and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran.
In the private sector, he was president and COO at Invictus and CISO for the public sector at Lumen Technologies. As Vermont’s CISO, he made the state the first in the nation to prohibit the use of certain Chinese- and Russian-state-sponsored technology firms across state-owned and vendor-operated infrastructure.
Andersen holds a master’s in cybersecurity from Brown University, a master’s in information security and assurance from Western Governors University and an executive certificate in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Why Watch
Andersen comes into the top job at a moment of significant pressure for the agency. His priorities center on defending critical infrastructure and federal networks as adversary threats accelerate. With broad experience across military, state, federal and private sector roles, he’s one of the few people in the building who has operated on every side of the problem.