On the 12th of November, Maarten Boot, Senior Policy Advisor at FEPORT participated in a panel discussion during the Smart and Digital Ports Conference which was organised at the Radisson City Blu Hotel in Amsterdam. The panel, “Why Cyber Resilience is More Important Than Ever in Today’s Ports”, was moderated by Mr. Que Tran, Vice-President Technology and Transformation – Europe at DP World and featured speakers from the Port of Sines, Ms. Ana Rita Martins, Information Systems and Business Support, and Geniox, represented by Chief Information Security Officer Thomas Snuverink.
The panel focussed on topics related to data sharing between ports and terminal operators to better detect and react to cyber threats, as well as incident response. The question how ports and terminals can get return on investment from cybersecurity measures when the benefits are only risk reduction but not revenues was also addressed. On this question panellists concurred that ports and terminals should not hesitate to ask for public support to cover the costs of the needed measures, as cybersecurity measures in our industry benefit the resilience of ports and supply chains at large, while enhancing societal resilience. In addition, cybersecurity is an essential building block for wider port security and military mobility.
During the panel discussion, Maarten Boot highlighted the need to not only enhance the cybersecurity of information and operational technology used in terminals, focussing, for example, on connected terminal equipment and the TOS, but also to reduce risks up- and downstream ports focussing on calling transport modes, grids and B2B and B2A information exchanges.
