Over 40 leading cybersecurity professionals and infosec experts have signed an open letter condemning the political persecution of former CISA Director Christopher Krebs. They have urged the Trump administration to rescind the recent executive actions targeting Krebs and his former employer, SentinelOne.
The letter, organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), responds to a presidential executive order issued on April 9, 2025, that directed the Attorney General and Homeland Security Secretary to investigate Krebs and instructed the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to revoke security clearances held by Krebs and SentinelOne employees. The executive order labeled Chris Krebs a “significant bad-faith actor” who allegedly misused his authority while leading CISA.
Industry leaders raise alarm
In their April 28 letter to President Trump, the 40 signatories, comprising prominent voting-security experts, computer-science professors, tech executives, and security researchers, denounced the investigation as “retribution” for Krebs’ accurate affirmation that the 2020 election was fair and secure.
President Trump appointed Krebs as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in November 2018, only to fire him in November 2020 after Krebs publicly contradicted Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, affirming it was “the most secure in American history.”
On his first day back in office in January 2025, President Trump revoked security clearances for 51 former intelligence officials. Subsequently, on April 9, a presidential executive order specifically targeted Krebs and SentinelOne, where Krebs had been serving as Chief Intelligence and Public Policy Officer.
The letter supporting Krebs is signed by a group of experts, including Harold Abelson, MIT Professor of Computer Science; David L. Dill, Donald E. Knuth Professor Emeritus in the School of Engineering at Stanford University; and Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Distinguished Technologist at the Internet Society.
“I’m proud to be one of the security experts who signed the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) letter in support of Chris Krebs,” wrote entrepreneur and technologist Adam Shostack in a LinkedIn post.
The letter EFF said, “By placing Krebs and SentinelOne in the crosshairs, the President is signaling that cybersecurity professionals whose findings conflict with his narrative risk having their businesses and livelihoods subjected to spurious and retaliatory targeting, mirroring tactics recently deployed against law firms.”
The cybersecurity professionals highlighted their “professional obligation to report truthful findings, even — and especially — when they diverge from the playbook of the powerful” and expressed solidarity with Krebs for doing so.
Demand for immediate action
The letter concluded with a specific petition for the Trump Administration to immediately take two actions: reinstate the security clearances of SentinelOne employees and rescind the order to the Department of Justice investigating Krebs.
“An independent infosec community is fundamental to protecting our democracy, and to the profession itself,” the letter asserted. “It is only by allowing us to do our jobs and report truthfully on systems in an impartial and factual way without fear of political retribution that we can hope to secure those systems.”
The EFF has also filed amicus briefs supporting four law firms reportedly targeted by similar executive actions, characterizing these measures as “unconstitutional executive orders.” The letter remains open for additional cybersecurity signatories who wish to support Krebs and independent security research.
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