IBM Security and the Port of Los Angeles have announced a $6.8 million, three-year agreement to design and operate a Port Cyber Resilience Centre (CRC).
This multiyear agreement is aimed at improving the Port’s cybersecurity readiness as well as enhancing threat sharing and collaboration within its supply chain. IBM will provide its security software and services to design, install, operate and maintain the CRC. As well as technology, IBM will provide expertise to help port stakeholders detect and protect against malicious cyber incidents.
The CRC will be a maritime Security Intelligence and Operations Centre (SIOC) to automate threat collaboration and extend its reach beyond traditional maritime stakeholders to Port stakeholders. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to contribute threat data to the CRC as well as benefit from the more extensive and accumulated threat intelligence made available to them through it.
“The Cyber Resilience Centre will provide a cutting-edge early warning system to further defend the Port and its stakeholders against cyber threats,” said Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka. “This will result in greater collective knowledge, enhanced data sharing throughout our Port ecosystem, and will help to maintain the flow of critical cargo.”
The Board recommendation to select IBM was based on a competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process conducted by the Port. The new CRC will leverage IBM Cloud Pak for Security, X-Force Threat Intelligence and IBM Security SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) to facilitate automated response playbooks to security events and collaboration amongst Port stakeholders. IBM will also collaborate with TruSTAR to leverage their enterprise intelligence management platform for stakeholders to automate and distribute intelligence among the Port of Los Angeles and Port Stakeholders.
The collaboration with IBM Security will provide the Port of Los Angeles’s CRC with cutting edge security technologies and expert services support, including threat Intelligence, automated Workflows, orchestrated responses, and SIOC dedicated services and support.
“A supply chain is only as strong as its most vulnerable entity. The CRC will help each participating member of the supply chain to better protect themselves, and by extension each other,” said Wendi Whitmore, vice president, IBM Security X-Force. “In the face of a cyberattack, every second counts and with the threat detection, threat sharing, and automation capabilities that IBM can bring to this project, we’re uniquely positioned to build the tools that can help provide the speed and efficiency stakeholders demand.”
