MTS Intelligence Shares Increase a Staggering Fifty Percent
The Maritime Transportation System Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MTS-ISAC) just released their 2021 Annual Report. Founded in 2020, the ISAC’s second annual report highlights the continued progress the maritime community has made through active public-private peer engagement of critical infrastructure stakeholders. Building upon a foundation of leadership and trust, the number of inbound MTS intelligence shares soared by fifty percent. In addition, several Information Exchanges, a key pillar of the MTS-ISAC community-based approach, were operationalized to enable stakeholders to work more closely together and create a common baseline understanding of the cyber threats they are facing. Altogether, the report highlights key milestones and results achieved during the second year to improve resiliency across the sector.
Based upon the reporting the MTS-ISAC received in 2021, maritime critical infrastructure stakeholders saw a marked increase in cyber-attacks from the previous year. They regularly fended off a variety of threats, including zero-day attacks, ransomware, and credential harvesting phishing campaigns from advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. Simultaneously, they were challenged by aggressive scanning activity that targeted their networks and systems looking for a wide range of software vulnerabilities. The nearly 1,500 MTS stakeholder shares related to this range of activity allowed the MTS-ISAC to publish 89 cybersecurity advisories and 753 indicator bulletins that provided early situational awareness to peer stakeholders.
“Our second year was exceptional. Any doubt as to whether successful cybersecurity information sharing could be achieved in the maritime sector has long evaporated,” stated Scott Dickerson, the MTS-ISAC’s Executive Director. “In addition to the launch of our Information Exchange program, which substantially contributed to the growth of our stakeholder base and provided critical insights to the threat activity targeting our sector, we added critical infrastructure partners and adopted Cyware as our information sharing platform. While we are excited about our 2021 accomplishments, we know that more challenges are ahead of us than behind us. But we are firm in our belief that we’ll be best prepared as a community working together to address the challenges, and we‘ll accomplish more as a result.”
The MTS-ISAC encourages all port and marine stakeholders to download a free copy of the report to better understand the challenges faced and gains made by this important critical infrastructure sector. Also, the MTS-ISAC would like to extend a special thanks to their board of directors, stakeholders, partners, collaborators, interns, and everyone who has taken an interest in supporting its mission. “We are most effective when supported by an engaged group of stakeholders,” added Christy Coffey, VP of Operations. “Our stakeholders make all the difference. We are so grateful that our industry and state and local stakeholders showed up as cyber leaders willing to share threat information across the maritime sector on a daily basis.”
Comments