Case Studies

For each of these examples, progress and success resulted from initiative and sustained proactive engagement with government officials and lead representatives for other transportation modes and critical infrastructure sectors. The sound and strongly justified priorities for enhancing security and emergency preparedness, developed with the unified support of the Rail Sector’s cyber and physical security committees, have yielded enduring advantages for industry and government.

Supply Chain Vulnerability

Facilitated mitigation of risk posed by a serious supply chain vulnerability in the Blackberry QNX operating system used in surface transportation.
Engaged industry-formed suppliers’ information sharing and coordination group, composed of major vendors of equipment to railroads, to aid senior cybersecurity officials at DHS on the principal challenge - identifying users of affected operating system variants.
Arranged confidential sharing by DHS of details on vulnerability, enabling assessments of whether affected variants were in use and to what extent.
Positioned affected entities to apply security patches before vulnerability announced publicly. No successful exploits in surface transportation.

Deterring Malicious Interference

Implemented concerted strategy with federal government agencies to deter organized campaigns that repeatedly disrupted freight rail operations.
Highlighted core problem - cessation of criminal prosecutions in some metropolitan areas by local authorities of offenses deemed “property-only.”
Engaged senior officials with multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, on federal laws violated and scale of adverse impacts to public safety and security.
Gained support for prosecutions under federal statutes that criminalize malicious interference with operations of trains.
Dramatic declines ensued in the volume and impact of offenses.

Emergency Relief

Acted expeditiously on requests for assistance by the Chair of the Food and Agriculture Sector and officials with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to prevent the mass starvation of dairy cows in central Florida due to effects of Hurricane Irma.
Rail infrastructure most heavily impacted in this area, with extensive debris on tracks, numerous downed power lines, and washouts.
Engaged major freight railroad that services the region to trigger prioritization of response and service restoration for central Florida.
Tragedy averted as track cleared and operations restored in record time. “Great Grain Train” delivered dozens of rail cars filled with animal feed.
Reference: The Fence Post - "Great Grain Train” aids Florida dairies (September 19, 2017).

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