DOD, civilian partners evaluate cyber threats during 2015 Honolulu Maritime Cybersecurity Exercise

Photo By Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal | Participants of the 2015 Honolulu Maritime Cybersecurity Exercise, conduct a simulated cyber-attack against an opposing team to evaluate ways to prevent and mitigate future cyber-attacks as part of the cyber range portion of the exercise, at the University of Hawaii Jan. 28, 2015, in Honolulu. The exercise simulated and examined port-wide awareness, prevention, response and recovery efforts for a large-scale, coordinated cyber-attack campaign affecting the marine transportation system in the State of Hawaii. Participants had the opportunity to evaluate and improve individual security programs, forge lasting working relationships and build avenues for information sharing to help prevent and mitigate future cyber-attacks. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal)  

HONOLULU, HI, UNITED STATES

01.28.2015

Story by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal 

DMA Pacific - Hawaii Media Bureau   

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, Honolulu – The U.S. Coast Guard Sector Honolulu, University of Hawaii (UH), and the University of Samoa Area Maritime Security (AMS) committee, partnered to conduct the 2015 Honolulu Maritime Cybersecurity Exercise Jan. 28-29.

Exercise participants had the opportunity to evaluate cyber security programs, build relationships and create avenues for information sharing to prevent and mitigate future cyber-attacks through scenario-driven and discussion based simulations during the one and a half daylong exercise.

The exercise format tested players in awareness, prevention, and response and recovery efforts during a large-scale, coordinated cyber-attack campaign scenario that could affect the marine transportation system (MTS) in the State of Hawaii.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Shannon Gilreath, Coast Guard Sector Honolulu sector commander, said that training to combat cyber-attacks during scenarios specific to Hawaii is important.

“The same way that we want to prepare for a potential tsunami or hurricane, we want to prepare our port for a potential cyber-attack,” Gilreath said. “The ports in Hawaii are absolutely critical to the state because that’s how we move almost all of our cargo in and out of the state. It’s important that we keep them secure and that we protect against attacks like this.”

Gilreath explained what IT professionals will need to accomplish and how they will be challenged while protecting a simulated generic maritime business during the exercise.

“What we’ve done today is we worked with the University of Hawaii to be able to use their cyber range,” Gilreath said. “We brought in our maritime industry partners, IT professionals, to defend against an attack on that business. The attacks come in various forms that will be impacting their storage retrieval capability, impact their theft of potential intellectual property, it will probably impact their email as well as any webpages or advertisements they have on it. As a result, we want those IT professionals to get a chance to practice some of their skills in a non-retribution environment.”

Charles Barclay, Air and Maritime Security Committee Chair and exercise industry lead, explained how IT professionals worked together to harden cyber security processes during the exercise.

“We are doing a cyber-security range exercise along with a table top exercise,” Barclay said. “What we’re emulating is a tax of partners in the MTS here in the port of Honolulu with the intent of building the port partners capability and resiliency to both observe and recognize that there is an attack going on, how to communicate to their government partners on what’s going on, and then develop some scenarios and solutions on how they can respond to those attacks better and more effectively.”

The exercise is also designed to build a stronger relationship between industry and government partners during the exercise.

“Industry is the first line of defense in any type of cyber-attack,” Barclay said. “The Central Command (CENTCOM) attack was clearly a military attack but you also had Sony in the last month that was attacked so as industry we don’t expect the government to be able to provide a line of defense for us. What we’re looking for is how do we recognize that an attack is coming, how do we respond to it? This exercise is partly there to reduce the barriers that occur between government partners and industry partners if we are attacked.”

IT professionals facilitating and performing in the exercise hope that the experience will strengthen the rapport between industry and government entities.

“We hope, that through this cyber range exercise, we will be developing those relationships so that industry partners in the MTS will be willing to reach out to their government leads through the interaction that they’ve made today and tomorrow,” Barclay said.

The 2015 Honolulu Maritime Cybersecurity Exercise is a first step in an ongoing effort to make the Hawaii MTS stronger, safer and more resilient.

• Date Taken: 01.28.2015
• Date Posted: 02.03.2015 19:22
• Story ID: 153441
• Location: HONOLULU, HI, US