Experts agree that UAS are vulnerable to exploitation, and malicious actors could exploit vulnerabilities within UAS and their supply chains and disrupt or interfere with legitimate UAS operations.
Photo Courtesy of @Schiebel
Port St. Joe, FL (April 19, 2021) – The Unmanned Safety Institute (USI) has formed a strategic alliance with Moran Cyber, a maritime tech business providing independent managed cybersecurity services solutions for commercial vessel and port facility operators and the global supply chain. The alliance is focused on supporting organizations with their implementation of unmanned/robotic technology and their security implications for both hardware and software, and data security.
“We are seeing more and more commercial UAS operators standing up large scale, robust UAS operations, and wanting to employ best practices throughout their operation”, stated Josh Olds, President and Co-Founder of USI. Olds added, “USI has been supporting their operational and training best practices, and through our alliance with Moran Cyber, we can fold in cybersecurity solutions that will lend to standards, self-assessments, and risk management solutions to this important issue.”
Moran Cyber has deep field expertise in cybersecurity in maritime and port operations. Moran Cyber’s Managing Director, Alex Soukhanov, commented on their move into UAS, “we have found that our marine clients share many of the same risks and practices with their unmanned aviation-based counterparts concerning digital security. As investments grow in unmanned applications and technology advances, we have an opportunity to ensure the next generation of cybersecurity and data security is built in by design and as an enduring priority for reliability and safety. Additionally, many marine stakeholders are also becoming users of UAS for inspection purposes as well as overall safety enhancements”.
With UAS growth continuing at a significant rate, and more complex operations being performed autonomously around the world, it is essential that every UAS operation incorporate risk management policies and processes for all the key issues including pilot hiring and training, flight operations, cybersecurity, and fleet maintenance. When all of the issues are being properly managed, the value proposition supporting large scale use of UAS can be attained. What is learned in unmanned aviation and robotic technologies could be applied to other unmanned systems.
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About the Unmanned Safety Institute
The Unmanned Safety Institute (USI) is the industry’s most widely recognized leader in flight safety solutions for individuals, academia and organizations focused on integrating and operating UAS for civil or commercial purposes. The Unmanned Safety Institute provides UAS flight safety training and certification to operational standards based on the adoption and modification of time-honored aviation safety practices. With more than 200 instructors and over 10,000 customers around the world, including several Fortune 500 enterprises and nearly 200 schools in over 30 states, USI is the global leader in commercial and academic UAS training and certification, delivering the most highly regarded training program of its kind. Programs include the Small UAS & Advanced Safety Certifications, Visual Line of Sight Systems Operations™ (VSO) and Professional Remote Operator™ (PRO) certifications and Unmanned Connect™ workforce development initiative. USI’s training and certification programs are endorsed by major aviation insurance providers and incorporated into aviation association professional development programs and have been evaluated and recommended for college credit by the American Council on Education. Discover more at www.UnmannedSafetyInstitute.org.
USI - Alexis Creedy Alexis.Creedy@unmanned-safety.org
About Moran Cyber
Moran Cyber is a multi-disciplinary team that provides empirical field-tested solutions services to safeguard marine transportation and the supply chain from cyber threats, with a focus on integrated Information Technology (IT), Operational Technology (OT), industrial controls systems (ICS), and emerging technologies such as IoT and edge computing devices. As an interface between vessels, cargo handling facilities, and businesses, Moran Cyber’s work spans from the technical level at the deck plates and the pier up to the Board Room and beyond by translating cyber risk to the business language that empowers stakeholders. Moran’s vision is to be ahead of cyber threats by bringing visibility, tangibility, and simplicity to cyber through advanced and organically developed services, to include security threat modeling, and security monitoring, cyber risk reduction and remediation, penetration testing, security architecture review, and research. As a trusted industry leader and innovator, Moran’s team also provided contributing authorship to all four versions of the “Guidelines for Cybersecurity Onboard Ships”, in collaboration with the largest shipowner stakeholder groups in the world and maintains regular interface with government stakeholders on behalf of industry principals. Discover more at www.morancyber.com.
Moran – Alex Soukhanov, asoukhanov@morancyber.com and Will Perez, Ph.D. wperez@morancyber.com
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