Cyber Security in the Rotterdam Maritime Sector

This project addresses the challenge of building a cyber resilience infrastructure in the Rotterdam Maritime Sector. This is a sector that is characterized by complex business chains and a very diverse population of companies. Cyber resilience is a critical competence that needs to be developed for this entire community, and for this purpose research questions need to be addressed concerning the nature of chain related dependencies and related cyber vulnerabilities, as well as ways to properly include large numbers of small and medium sized enterprises. With this proposal, we contribute directly to the aims of the CS4NL program.
The project will develop a framework for the dependencies between businesses in maritime operational processes in and around the Port of Rotterdam, and carry out analysis in the context of five case studies of critical processes. These include ship calls in port, loading and unloading operations for dangerous goods, container retrieval processes at terminals, supplying vessels with spare parts, stores and fuel, and ship repair. In addition, an investigation will be made of successful models to include SMEs in societal challenges. This knowledge will be developed into a SME inclusion approach that is fit for the Rotterdam maritime domain.
These two ingredients – insights in chain dependencies that result in cyber vulnerablities, and an actionable SME inclusion strategy – will be combined and integrated in the broader Rotterdam Maritime Cyber Resilience approach. Elements of this approach already exist, and the approach as a whole is developing as well. Our project will include crucial insights that will make this approach fit for purpose in the maritime domain, and therefore more effective as a cyber resilience mechanism.
The main result of this project – an effective maritime cyberapproach - is therefore a crucial component of the Rotterdam Maritime Cyber resilience approach, that will also be benchmarked nationally and internationally.
The innovative nature of this project is that we will address the cyber vulnerability of the Rotterdam Maritime Sector by combining two research lines: the identification of cyber vulnerabilities resulting from complex business networks, and solutions for the effective inclusion of large numbers of SMEs. The first research line, on chain related vulnerabilities, addresses an as yet underdeveloped problem in cyber resilience. The second addresses the broader problem of the inclusion of SMEs in societal transitions. The research in this project will address this second problem by stepping outside the box of cyber security related research, and collecting insights from projects and initiatives from a broad range of origins. The integration of the insights from these two research lines will result in a crucial building block in the Rotterdam Cyber Resilience approach.
We will valorize the result of this project – a building block for the Rotterdam Cyber Resilience approach – in two main ways: we will benchmark our approach both nationally in other domains (horticulture, energy, high tech, chemical industry), and internationally in the maritime domain (in the industrial clusters of Houston and Singapore). Second, we will develop an actionable approach to include large numbers of SMEs in building cyber resilience approach and, together with project partner FERM, develop a roll out plan, as well as carrying out the first steps of this roll out plan.