The Maritime and Port Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise (TTX): October 7-9, 2025

Sponsored by Claroty

Restoring America's Maritime Dominance in Cyberspace!

Dr. Frank Cilluffo (left), McCrary Institute director, and Brad Medairy (right), executive VP for national security at Booz Allen Hamilton to discuss the launch of the report on July 31, 2025. Photo courtesy of Don Kauffman/McCrary Institute.

TTX HIGHLIGHTS AND DETAILED UPDATES

  • On September 4th and 25th, the Neptune SHIELD Tech Hub and Gold Institute For International Strategy will host future planning sessions to continue organization of the TTX in October. This meeting will include current TTX participants along with review and refinement of exercise material and logistics.

  • The Epoch Times highlighted the TTX efforts, which directly supports a recommendation from a recently published report by the McCrary Institute and Booz Allen Hamilton, titled, "Anchored in Zero Trust: Taking Action to Create Resilient U.S. Port Infrastructure." Full article at: Experts Offer Roadmap to Secure US Ports From CCP Attack | The Epoch Times

  • We are proud to announce Claroty as our Platinum sponsor for the TTX. Board of Directors for Claroty include Chris Inglis, who served in the White House as the inaugural U.S. National Cyber Director and Kirsten Davies who is awaiting confirmation to be DoD's next CIO.

Maritime cyber threats result in shipping-related operational, safety, or security failures due to information or systems being corrupted, lost or compromised.

The Growing Threat! Maritime and port systems—a critical backbone of global trade, national security, and logistics—remain vulnerable to cyberattacks targeting legacy IT/OT networks, navigation controls, and supply chains.

In October 2025, this TTX aims to simulate real-world threats to expose gaps and build strategies. TTX scenarios include “adversary threshold” responses to highly disruptive cyber activity like access to shipping navigation control systems or supply networks. Use cases will leverage recommendations from the McCrary Institute Presidential Transition Task Force report, focused on cybersecurity standards in incident response, improved interagency coordination and information sharing, and effects of more aggressive offensive cyber operations like “hack back.”

Left to right (June 26, 2025): Nick Rocha (Founder, President and CEO of Neptune SHIELD), VA Beach Mayor Bobby Dyer, Jeff Hoffmann (Senior Cyber Fellow for The Gold Institute), and Darrin Poole (Neptune SHIELD COO and Training Chair for TTX).

To kick-off the TTX, on June 26, the team (pictured above) hosted a successful Stakeholder Forum with regional, state, federal, academic, and private sector leaders to continue planning for the TTX in October 2025.

The Forum began with welcome remarks from Virginia Beach, Mayor Bobby Dyer who emphasized the The Port of Virginia economic and national-security value, stating " we are not just a port region; we are a national-security lynchpin." He affirmed city support for this mission-essential exercise, which was also attended by Virginia Beach Economic Development and Hampton Roads Alliance

During the Forum, leaders of the TTX provided an overview of the growing maritime threat across port operations, undersea cable dependencies, and supply chain vendors. This threat assessment began with a video from the UK's Sky News highlighting Iranian intelligence surveillance and targeting activities of western critical infrastructure assets. The real Iranian destructive threat was compared to Russian "tit for tat" cyber used as traditional espionage and deliberative Chinese capabilities as a part of a denial and deception campaign.

TTX exercise plan methodology was discussed to include sources of information being used to influence scenario development like the recent White House Executive Order for Maritime Dominance. Along with the Maritime Action Plan, additional sources for TTX material include:

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