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| RVTEC attendees, Scripps Institution of Oceanography |
In November, members of Trusted CI attended the 2025 UNOLS RVTEC Meeting in La Jolla, CA. The RVTEC (Research Vessel Technical Enhancement Committee) Meeting, “brings together marine technicians, engineers, and vessel operators from the U.S. Academic Research Fleet (ARF) and other agencies to share knowledge, advance best practices, and collaborate on technical solutions.”
The team contributed to many of the sessions on Cyber Monday, including a cybersecurity update from the Academic Research Fleet, the Secure by Design Operational Technology Vendor Procurement Matrix, and how-tos on developing a cyber risk assessment, an incident response plan, and cyber-incident drills.
During Mike Simpson’s presentation reviewing the 2025 activities of ARFSEC (the team that runs the fleet-wide cybersecurity program), he announced a new Ship Site Visit template that Trusted CI developed to collect information during NSF inspections of the ARF’s vessels. The purpose of the template is to document details about a vessel’s cybersecurity and cyberinfrastructure (CI) in order to identify what gaps might need attention. The template has been field tested during visits to the RV Sikuliaq, the RV Atlantic Explorer, the RV Rachel Carson, and will be used in the inspection of the RV Neil Armstrong.
The template can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17807879
The 5-day meeting was packed with presentations, trainings, breakout sessions, and an impressive tour of the Scripps Nimitz Marine Facility.
Maritime vessels in the U.S. Academic Research Fleet are arguably the most complicated pieces of cyberinfrastructure in the NSF research infrastructure portfolio, and as such have complex and changing cybersecurity requirements. Trusted CI looks forward to continuing to support the ARF and the scientific progress that it enables.
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| Slide from SatNAG update displaying CI resources available to the fleet |
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| Helm control panel on the R/V Sally Ride |
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| Test bench at the Shipboard Technical Support Calibration Lab |
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| R/V Sally Ride |
