The Coast Guard on Tuesday released an updated cybersecurity strategy that outlines three lines of effort amid increasing cyber threats to the nation’s maritime transportation system.
The previous cybersecurity strategy, released in 2015, established cyberspace as a new operational domain for the Coast Guard, which is the Sector Risk Management agency for protecting the maritime transportation system.
The new Cyber Strategic Outlook updates the previous strategy “to ensure U.S. Coast Guard readiness to conduct all missions in a contested cyberspace, to secure the maritime transportation sector through a rules-based international order, and to identify and combat adversary activity in and through cyberspace,” the latest strategy document says.
The three lines of effort for Coast Guard action described in the strategy include defending and operating on the Coast Guard’s Enterprise Mission Platform (EMP) and other technologies.
“As the EMP expands to push more information to and from the tactical edge in an increasingly global U.S. Coast Guard, we will increase our capability through more dynamic defense and network operations enabled by intelligence, sensors, automation, and a skilled network,” the strategy says.
Some of the requirements that fall within the first line of effort include investments in detecting, preventing, responding and being resilient to cyber adversaries. Investments include sensors, automation, artificial intelligence, cloud architecture and mobility.
The Coast Guard also says it needs to improve interoperability with U.S. Cyber Command and the larger joint force.
The second line of effort is to protect the maritime transportation system, which includes taking a risk-based approach, governance structures, best practices and response activities through its cyber forces.
The final line of effort is being able to project capabilities through cyberspace just as it does in its other operational domains.
“The U.S. Coast Guard will embed cyber planning in our traditional missions and execute cyberspace operations that combine the service’s unique authorities, capabilities, and workforce to deliver mission success,” the strategic outlook says. “Through our role in DHS and the DoD’s Joint Force, we will execute operations through the law enforcement and military spectrums to impose costs on criminal actors or nation state adversaries.”