How cyber vulnerabilities and workforce cuts threaten the crisis lifeline program

Congressional lawmakers are making a renewed push to shore up any cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s crisis hotline, even as workforce cuts at the agency overseeing the service have raised questions about the potential impact that staff reductions could have on mental health interventions. 

Since it launched in 2022, the three-digit 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — has received more than 14.5 million contacts. 

The hotline is available 24/7 to those living in all U.S. states and territories and gives individuals who are experiencing mental health crises the opportunity to call, text or chat with trained counselors. The Veterans Crisis Line also uses a 988 plus 1 option to provide more streamlined care for retired servicemembers.

The Lifeline has evolved over time to better serve those seeking assistance, including adding a video calling feature to support American Sign Language users and adopting “georouting” to better connect 988 callers with local resources by using their approximate locations instead of their area codes. 

Cyber Concerns

Efforts to ensure uninterrupted access to the Lifeline have received particular attention ever since a December 2022 cyberattack on the corporate network of telecommunications vendor Intrado led to an almost day-long disruption in calls to the hotline. 

In a statement emailed to Nextgov/FCW, John Palmieri, acting director of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, said that, following the cyberattack, “SAMHSA took rapid action to mitigate the disruption of services and redirect 988 callers to the Lifeline’s chat and text services.”

He noted that the agency’s 988 Quality and Services Plan, which was released in April 2024, also outlined cybersecurity requirements for all of the Lifeline’s systems and platforms.

Despite these moves, lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have pushed bipartisan legislation that would prevent similar cyber incidents from disrupting access to the 988 Lifeline. 

Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., introduced the 9-8-8 Lifeline Cybersecurity Responsibility Act in February to better identify and address cyber vulnerabilities across the hotline’s systems. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate earlier this month by Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin and California Democrat Alex Padilla. 

The measure was previously introduced last Congress by Obernolte and former-Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., and passed the House in March 2024, although a Senate companion sponsored by former-Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., did not pass the upper chamber before the end of the year. 

Vibrant Emotional Health, which serves as the administrator of the 988 Lifeline, issued a press release on April 8 that expressed support for the lawmakers’ reintroduced legislation, with the organization’s Chief Executive Officer Cara McNulty saying the proposal would “ensure uninterrupted access to the 988 Lifeline for people in crisis who need vital mental health support.”

Palmieri also said that Vibrant “has invested significantly in cybersecurity” since the 2022 cyberattack.

“Actions included engaging a top-tier global cybersecurity professional services firm to perform an in-depth assessment of Vibrant’s security posture, working with Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other federal partners to conduct vulnerability scanning, and [we have] provided 988-specific cybersecurity training to all crisis centers in the 988 Lifeline network,” he added.

A Workforce Under Threat

A former SAMHSA official who worked for the agency during the rollout of 988 told Nextgov/FCW that concerns about Lifeline outages used to keep them up at night. They added, however, that recent workforce and spending cuts across SAMHSA pose a more immediate challenge to 988 beyond cyber threats. 

Under the guidance of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, SAMHSA lost roughly 10% of its workforce in February, with CBS News reporting that those layoffs also affected staff working on projects related to the 988 Lifeline. The New York Times similarly reported last month that SAMHSA could ultimately see its workforce cut by as much as 50%. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has already announced that SAMHSA and other department agencies will be rolled together into a new entity known as the Administration for a Healthy America. HHS has also moved to cancel billions of dollars in federal grants to states for a range of health-related initiatives, including funds used for 988 services.

Disruptions at this stage of the Lifeline’s existence — particularly when it comes to promoting the hotline’s existence and providing state, local and tribal communities with the assistance they need to build out their 988-related capacity — could affect its nationwide accessibility, the former SAMHSA official said. They noted that states and other communities are in different stages of deployment when it comes to their crisis response efforts, with some still heavily relying on federal funding to build out their infrastructure.

“It is going to take time for 988 to be what 911 is to people,” they said. “There are far too many people who still do not know what 988 is. And I am worried now that, given the environment and everything that has happened, that so much activity around awareness and education has slowed down.”

In an interview with Nextgov/FCW, Dingell said her legislation was needed to strengthen the 988 Lifeline’s cybersecurity but also expressed concern about how cuts to SAMHSA personnel would affect efforts to provide better mental health assistance across the country.

“I think we should have bipartisan work on ensuring that we're addressing the mental health crisis,” she said. “988 is part of making sure that we've got an infrastructure out there to address mental health issues, and you aren't going to do that if you start firing trained crisis counselors.”

Dingell added that the Lifeline “has served a lot of people, and it saves lives and it needs our support.”