Daily Briefing for 02.27.26

Top stories.

• CISA’s acting director steps down.
• Greek court sentences four Intellexa associates over spyware scandal.
• Juniper Networks patches a critical flaw affecting PTX series routers.

CISA’s acting director steps down.

Madhu Gottumukkala has stepped down as acting director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), to be replaced by Nick Andersen, the agency's Executive Director for Cybersecurity, CyberScoop reports. Andersen has previously held IT and cybersecurity roles at the Coast Guard, the Navy, and the Department of Energy. Sean Plankey, President Trump's nominee for full-time CISA director, has been stalled in the confirmation process for months.

CyberScoop reported earlier this week on bipartisan criticisms of CISA over the past year, including scrutiny of Gottumukkala's leadership. A DHS spokesperson told CyberScoop that Gottumukkala "has done a remarkable job in a thankless task of helping reform CISA back to its core statutory mission." Gottumukkala will remain at DHS as director of strategic implementation.

The leadership shift coincides with reports that CISA Chief Information Officer Robert Costello is also departing.

Greek court sentences four Intellexa associates over spyware scandal.

A Greek court has sentenced the founder of the Intellexa Consortium and three of his associates to eight years in prison, the Record reports. Intellexa is an Athens-based Israeli company that develops the Predator spyware. The company's founder, former Israeli soldier Tal Dilian, currently lives in Cyprus and was sentenced in absentia.

The four men were implicated in 2022's "Greek Watergate," a surveillance scandal that involved the illegal use of the Predator spyware by Greek intelligence services to spy on more than 90 members of civil society, including government ministers, senior military officials, and journalists. The head of Greece's EYP intelligence service stepped down following the scandal, as did one of the prime minister's aides. In July 2024, Greece's Supreme Court cleared the intelligence services and political officials of wrongdoing, angering victims and opposition parties, POLITICO reports.

Juniper Networks patches a critical flaw affecting PTX series routers.

Juniper Networks has issued an out-of-band update to address a critical flaw affecting Junos OS Evolved on PTX series high-performance routers, SecurityWeek reports. The vulnerability (CVE-2026-21902) can allow "an unauthenticated, network-based attacker to execute code as root." Juniper notes, "With the ability to access and manipulate the service to execute code as root a remote attacker can take complete control of the device. Please note that this service is enabled by default as no specific configuration is required."