Austria’s revamped security leadership team tackles challenges
July 18, 2025 2 Comments
THE CONTROVERSIES THAT CONTINUE to be associated with the Austrian intelligence agencies today took place before December 2021, when the current Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (Direktion Staatsschutz und Nachrichtendienst, or DSN) was founded. Despite this, the DSN under the leadership of its director Omar Haijawi-Pirchner is still regarded as stable and predictable.
The DSN’s Western partner agencies were more than happy that the new governing coalition in Vienna was able to prevent the rightwing populist and generally Putin-friendly Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) from providing the minister of the interior. The fact that the current Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has been joined by an experienced state secretary is a major plus: Jörg Leichtfried, a Social Democrat born in 1967, has been regarded as a liberal European for many years, including eleven years as a member of the European Parliament. He will be responsible for state security and intelligence agencies.
One of Leichtfried’s stated goals has been particularly well received: he has vowed to improve the country’s national infrastructure and intensify its international cooperation. Various other details, such as the future framework conditions for military intelligence agencies, are also on his list. It is certain that the operational work of the DSN will continue to be led by Haijawi-Pirchner. This is reportedly to be improved, with better monitoring of terrorist threats, made possible by the planned extended access to messenger services.
The Austrian intelligence agencies have always been characterized by the personalities of their individua leaders. It is therefore all the more important who the leadership surrounds itself with—especially as the expectations are high, not least due to the threats from Russia and China. The uncertainty regarding Europe’s partners in the United States also means that the European intelligence agencies are urgently dependent on reliable Austrian partners.
As the political-strategic organization will be the responsibility of Leichtfried, two people who work in his immediate environment, and were previously only known to insiders, have come to the fore: the head of the Cabinet, Christian Strnad, and the head of Strategy and Security Policy, Rastislav Bachora. Both previously worked on the security-policy concept of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), the Social Democratic Strategy for Freedom, Protection and Security. Read more of this post
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Analysis: Change in sight as Austria appoints its first-ever female spy chief
December 22, 2025 by intelNews 2 Comments
During the selection process, Mayer did not simply prevail against her competitors, but virtually dominated the field: not only was she the sole candidate rated “highly suitable”—the highest mark in the application process— but all the remaining eleven applicants—among them two other women—were classified as “not suitable”, the lowest possible category.
Mayer being considered highly qualified by the section committee is not surprising, given her impressive career: after graduating from a higher technical education institute (an Austrian school form that educates teenagers from 15 to around 19 years of age) that focused on information
technology—which earned her the title of an engineer—Mayer joined the Austrian uniformed police in Linz, the country’s third largest city.
In 2012, Mayer joined the predecessor of the DSN, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism – BVT). Initially tasked with combating extremism, she was soon asked to establish a new unit (Referat in German) for the protection of critical infrastructure, which she consequently began heading in 2013. From 2020 to 2021 Mayer was the interim head of the protection and security department of the BVT. From December 2021 onwards, following the restructuring of the BVT into the DSN, Mayer took over the department of strategy, policy, resources and staff matters (Stabsangelegenheiten in German) within the new agency, before becoming its vice-director for intelligence, as mentioned earlier.
While working full-time, Mayer completed a law degree and doctorate in the same field, which was awarded to her in 2021 by the University of Vienna. According to her official biographical note, Mayer also holds a master’s degree in strategic security management from the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt.
Mayer is also an accomplished athlete: playing soccer since her teen years, she took part in the Austrian national league and joined the Austrian under-19 female national team. As a young girl she is said to have trained at length with the boys—an experience some have pointed out might have proven helpful for a career in Austria’s male dominated Ministry of Interior and the intelligence world. Over the years, Mayer has emphasized on several occasions that she hopes to inspire other women to also assume leadership roles and demonstrate that they are as capable as their male counterparts. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Austria, DSN (Austria), Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, Paul Schliefsteiner, Sylvia Mayer