Tag Archives: hackers

Port Canaveral CEO Supports Executive Order for Cybersecurity Regulations

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Following a new executive order to create cybersecurity regulations for U.S. Ports issued by the Biden administration, Capt. John Murray, the CEO of Port Canaveral expressed his support for the measures, according to a press release.

On Wednesday, Feb. 21., the Biden administration issued multiple cybersecurity directives aimed at shoring up vulnerabilities at US maritime ports that could be exploited by hackers and addressing security risks from Chinese-made cranes, according to CNN.

This new executive order will require U.S. ships and port facilities to report cyberattacks while giving the Coast Guard greater authority to inspect or control ships that present a known or suspected cyber threat.

In addition, the Coast Guard will impose new cybersecurity requirements on the operators of the Chinese-made cranes to mitigate the risk they pose, according to Rear Adm. John Vann, head of the Coast Guard Cyber Command.

Murray hailed the decision and said: “Maritime cybersecurity requires constant and consistent efforts for ports.

“Port Canaveral teams have worked closely with the Coast Guard to ensure our IT and port security practices align with state and federal directives. All measures and protections aimed at securing our port community are welcomed.”

Scenic Group Overcomes Cyber Attack with IT Restructure

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On February 20 of this year, Scenic Group was subject to a cyber attack, which caused issues with guest pre-travel documentation and customer service overall. The company overcame the challenges by completely rebuilding its IT systems and is now able to provide top-tier services to its customers once again.

According to a statement by company founder Glen Moroney, the hackers who took control of Scenic’s systems demanded a ransom, and he decided to refuse to pay it and enable these criminals to continue hacking other businesses.

Yet, stronger measures had to be taken.

Despite the initial projection of a short reboot lasting up to three weeks following the attack, the company chose a total system rebuild that took more than nine weeks. They were able to keep all guest data secure and leak-free thanks to this process.

Although communication with guests and industry partners was nearly impossible, and call centre times were impacted by the incident, Scenic Group has changed dramatically since then. Since the company is still dealing with a massive backlog, they have hired additional staff to deal with the return to full operations, as well as established a dedicated support team to handle the administrative tasks for each reservation.

Moroney further noted that some regions have seen an unprecedented level of flight rescheduling and late flight cancellations – even on the day of departure, resulting in a significant volume of incoming calls to the customer contact centre.

Scenic’s pre-departure document issuance is now approaching the pre-cyber attack timeframe, and average wait times for the customer contact centre have “decreased dramatically”, Moroney commented.