The Port of Los Angeles (POLA) has debuted its Cyber Resilience Center (CRC), a port community cyber defence solution, created to improve the cybersecurity readiness of the port, as well as threat-sharing and recovery capabilities among supply chain stakeholders.
The CRC that was designed through a collaborative process with participating stakeholders, will be operated by the technology company International Business Machines (IBM).
“We must take every precaution against potential cyber incidents, particularly those that could threaten or disrupt the flow of cargo,” noted Port of Los Angeles executive director, Gene Seroka.
He added that the CRC will provide a new level of awareness for the port’s stakeholders by providing enhanced intelligence, better collective knowledge sharing and enhanced protection against cyber threats within the port’s supply chain community.
Furthermore, Christopher McCurdy, general manager of IBM Security Services, commented, “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 technologies in cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) fueling 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,” added McCurdy.
The CRC also enables participating stakeholders to automatically share cyber threat indicators and potential defensive measures with each other, which helps centralise threat information and prevent cyber disruption of the supply chain.
Moreover, the platform serves as a hub for the Californian port to receive, analyse and share information among its stakeholders who handle cargo, such as terminal operators, shipping lines, truck and rail operators.
Additionally, the CRC will be conducting tabletop exercises with participating stakeholders and providing them with annual cybersecurity training, as part of its operations.
The first group of approximately 20 participating stakeholders is currently using the new system and it is gaining access to IBM’s threat intelligence sharing platform X-Force Threat Intelligence, with more groups expected to join the system every six months.
In 2014, POLA set the maritime industry standard for cyber security when it established a Cyber Security Operations Center to help protect the port’s internal networks. The newly-designed CRC builds upon that technology infrastructure with improved features.
