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The U.S. Coast Guard is focusing on hardening ports against cyber attacks. On Jan. 15, the USCG held a maritime cyber security standards public meeting to discuss cyber threats to our nation’s ports.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the government has spent more than $2.5 billion improving the physical security components of ports including: hardening perimeters with fencing, improving surveillance systems, authenticating personnel via the Transportation Workers Identification Credential program, adding sophisticated cargo screening technology, implementing land and sea patrols, and much more.
Ports are vulnerable to cyber attacks because their operation — and that of ships entering and exiting ports — depending heavily on technology, according to Ernie Hughes, who teaches the Port and Terminal Operations course in the Transportation and Logistics Management master’s program at American Military University.
"Throughout the supply chain, nearly all the transportation devices are just big computers and,
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increasingly, trains, trucks, ships and airplanes are all automated," said Hughes, who has held technology-based positions in companies including Boeing, Tenneco and Getty Oil. "Today a ship largely drives itself using a complex computer system and humans merely monitor things."
"Many of our transportation systems — including those operating ports and ships — were built when the threats were different," said Hughes. Many of these systems were not designed with the sophistication required to keep hackers and other intruders out because they were built at a time when network security was not a requirement.
Such reliance on technology makes container ships and ports extremely vulnerable to hackers. Today’s ports must harden their networks against cyber threats and face issues updating older technology systems.
For more of the In Homeland Security story: inhomelandsecurity.com
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