Americans woke up to the dangerous reality that a critical line of defense against cyberattacks is being pulled away from our towns and schools — nearly 19,000 state and local agencies could soon lose access to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the backbone that delivers real-time threat alerts and low-cost security tools to local governments. This is not a harmless budget shuffle; it is a strategic retreat at a moment when hostile actors and criminal cartels are sharpening their digital knives.
In March, federal support for MS-ISAC was sharply cut when CISA terminated a roughly $10 million arrangement with the Center for Internet Security, a move the agency defended as trimming redundancies and refocusing priorities. That $10 million was not pocket change for the communities that rely on MS-ISAC’s threat analysis and incident response capabilities — it was lifeline funding that kept small jurisdictions from being left exposed.
The Center for Internet Security warns the federal funding cliff is real: unless a new path is forged, MS-ISAC services that have been provided at little or no cost will shift to a fee-based membership model and federal funding is set to lapse on September 30, 2025. For rural schools, county hospitals, and volunteer-run election offices, that shift could mean choosing between paying for cyber defenses or funding essential public services.
This is a failure of priorities. Our federal homeland agency is handing responsibility to cash-strapped towns while shrugging that it must “prioritize mission-critical areas.” Real Americans don’t accept abstract bureaucratic language when the consequences are outages at water plants, hacked police databases, and paralyzed school systems. Local officials warned this would happen; now taxpayers are being asked to shoulder the bill for a defense the federal government once paid for.
Some states are doing what Washington will not: stepping up to fund local memberships so counties can keep basic protections. Washington State’s Secretary of State moved quickly to underwrite MS-ISAC access for county auditors and elections offices, showing that when patriotic leaders prioritize security, vulnerable communities don’t fall through the cracks. But a patchwork of state responses is no substitute for a cohesive national stance against cyber threats.
Congress must act and the American people should demand it — restore the funding, or at minimum create a durable federal-state partnership that guarantees critical information sharing stays free for smaller jurisdictions. Private charities and good Samaritans can help, but national security cannot be outsourced or left to the charity of the moment. Hardworking Americans expect their government to defend them; abandoning that duty in the name of bureaucratic efficiency is unacceptable and must be reversed.
