Although many transit agencies in US are concerned about cyber attacks, nearly half of them still lack a basic cyber attack preparedness plan says a research conducted by Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI).
Among those surveyed, over 80% of them say that they are well prepared with a disaster recovery plan which includes recovery during cyber crisis. But when practically seen, only 60% of them have a cyber security plan in plan that is logically correct.
Mind you, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recently categorized transportation sector belonging companies as one of the 16 critical infrastructure vulnerable to cyber threats from adversaries.
So, among those surveyed by MIT, 36% of them admit that they do not have a proper cyber recovery plan and 67% from them do not have a proper cyber crisis communication plan. And this includes nearly 8% of them who aren’t aware that a cyber attack can break their business on a temporary or a permanent note.
The attention seeking point found in the survey is that nearly 43% of companies involved in transit business say that they audit their Cybersecurity program once in a year. And that is much better when compared to the stats provided by companies operating in the same sector from different parts of the world.
MTI is advising that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) should take the initiative of guiding transit companies in visualizing basic cyber security standards to get federal funding. Also, the FTA needs to allocate funds to set up infrastructure that previews the implementation of cyber threat tackling measures and threat information sharing plan among companies that are regrettably impacted.
