The Port of Los Angeles has launched its new first-of-its-kind Cyber Resilience Center (CRC).
This latest offering from the port was created to improve its cybersecurity readiness and enhance its threat-sharing and recovery capabilities among supply chain stakeholders to reduce the risk of disruption.
The CRC was designed through a collaborative process with participating stakeholders and will be operated by IBM.
“We must take every precaution against potential cyber incidents, particularly those that could threaten or disrupt the flow of cargo,” said Gene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles.
“This new Cyber Resilience Center provides a new level of awareness for our stakeholders by providing enhanced intelligence, better collective knowledge sharing and heightened protection against cyber threats within our supply chain community.”
This ‘system of systems’ enables participating stakeholders to automatically share cyber threat indicators and potential defensive measures with each other, while also serving as a hub for the port to receive, analyse and share information among stakeholders such as terminal operators, shipping lines, truck, rail, and others.
The CRC is also available to participating groups as an advisory resource to assist with recovery.
Christopher McCurdy, General Manager for IBM Security Services, added: “The past year has proven the vital role that ports hold to our nation’s critical infrastructure, supply chains and economy, underscoring that it’s paramount we secure this ecosystem.
“The Port of Los Angeles is setting a new industry standard with a first-of-its-kind initiative to increase cyber readiness across the maritime community. With IBM’s cutting-edge technologies in cloud and AI fuelling the CRC, we’re able to provide the maritime ecosystem with the threat insights necessary to stay ahead of cyber threats and improve response time.”
The first group of 20 stakeholders are now using the system and gaining access to IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence. More groups are expected to join in the coming months.
As part of its operations, the CRC will be conducting tabletop exercises with participating stakeholders and providing them with annual cybersecurity training.
In 2014, the Port of Los Angeles set the maritime industry standard for cyber security by it establishing a Cyber Security Operations Center designed to help protect the port’s internal networks.
The newly established CRC builds upon the previous by improving the quality, quantity and speed of cyber information sharing and leveraging the security model to create a more inclusive maritime community.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has also recently taken steps to improve cyber security resilience by holding an inaugural sector-wide maritime cybersecurity exercise that tested the sector’s coordination on cybersecurity incident management, emergency response plans and crisis communications.
Exercise CyberMaritime 2021 was a three-day tabletop exercise held on 26, 29, and 30 November 2021.
