Reducing Risk in Transportation: Exposure Management & Proactive Incident Response

When a cyber disruption hits critical infrastructure agencies, the consequences are immediate and visible. For state and local transportation agencies, these incidents quickly escalate beyond IT issues into operational crises that impact public safety, economic continuity, and public trust such as grounded flights, gridlocked highways, stalled trains, and backed-up ports.

At the core of this challenge are highly interconnected cyber-physical systems (CPS) that enable modern transportation. These environments seamlessly coordinate physical and digital processes, from air traffic control and rail signaling to roadway management and port logistics. These agencies rely on a complex mix of operational technology (OT), IoT, building management systems (BMS) and supporting infrastructure that must remain continuously available.

Today, the threat landscape for critical infrastructure has shifted. Adversaries are no longer primarily focused on data theft, they are targeting operational disruption. Even more concerning, disruption doesn’t always require a sophisticated attack. Everyday exposures such as aging assets, misconfigurations, and insecure remote access can introduce instability into systems that were never designed with cybersecurity in mind.

This White Paper outlines the importance for state and local transportation agencies to take a more proactive approach to risk and vulnerability management to maintain resilient operations and ensure public safety.