DEFENSA

Marine Ports

Over the past decade, cybersecurity has emerged as one of the top vulnerabilities facing maritime ports across North America. The increased reliance on networked industrial control systems and automation, including for critical cargo handling machinery like ship-to-shore cranes, has exposed these vital transportation hubs to a variety of cyber threats.

Among the most insidious risks are injection or man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, where malicious actors insert themselves into the data communication channels between the cranes' control systems and other port networks and equipment. By intercepting and potentially manipulating these data flows, MITM attacks could allow hackers to send false commands causing cranes to perform unsafe movements, potentially leading to catastrophic physical damage, disruptions, and economic losses.

Compounding these threats are sophisticated supply chain  concerns.  A significant number of ship-to-shore cranes at major North  American  ports originate from Chinese state-controlled manufacturers, raising legitimate worries over built-in backdoor vulnerabilities that could be exploited for cyber-attacks or espionage. 

To address the MITM attack vector and broader cybersecurity needs for port environments, Akimbo Technology Inc. has developed the DEFENSA suite of cybersecurity solutions. The  DEFENSA Ethernet (DE) product specifically targets MITM threats within Ethernet networks commonly used in crane control systems.

Employing advanced dynamic distributed fault-tolerant computing, the DE  solution provides real-time autonomous detection, correction, and healing  capabilities to automatically mitigate and recover from successful MITM  breach attempts. It seamlessly integrates in-line with existing network  infrastructure like switches to enable fault tolerant dynamic routing (FTDR).

This multi-layered approach ensures DEFENSA can quickly identify anomalous  traffic patterns indicative of a MITM attack. It can then dynamically re-route  data flows over secure paths, while simultaneously initiating correction  protocols to remediate any malicious configuration changes attempted by the  attacker. 

By combining robust threat detection with autonomous correction and  healing responses, all facilitated through seamless integration with physical  networks, DEFENSA aims to provide comprehensive cyber resilience for  maritime port operations against the MITM attack vector.