The 2003 Cyber Protection Team (CPT) was established Tuesday at Coast Guard Island as the third CPT command and unit in a ceremony held by Coast Guard Cyber Command (CGCYBER).
Vice Adm. Peter W. Gautier, Deputy Commandant for Operations presided over the ceremony. 2003 CPT’s mission is to provide assess, threat hunting, and incident response capabilities to the Marine Transportation System (MTS).
2003 CPT is the first CPT geographically detached unit from CGCYBER and is continuing to staff its team to receive full operational capability certification by United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) in Spring 2024.
“The Coast Guard continues to have ever-growing threats in cyber space,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Miltenberger, CPT 2003 commanding officer. “Events like the Colonial Pipeline cyber-attack have demonstrated the ever-growing threats we face in cyber space – 2003 CPT stands ready to prevent, reduce, and respond to those threats in our critical marine infrastructure.”
The MTS is part of the Transportation Systems Critical Infrastructure sector as declared by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Notably, the MTS overlaps with several other critical infrastructure sectors that have a maritime nexus, which makes CPTs an invaluable asset for defending public infrastructure throughout the United States and its territories. The MTS consists of over 3,500 maritime facilities, and to date, USCG CPTs have assisted over 50 partners in the MTS. The CPTs also routinely participate in joint operations with federal agencies to include CISA and the FBI, as well as the Department of Defense.
Miltenberger is the first commanding officer for CPT 2003. His previous tours include branch chief of the CGCYBER Cyber Operational Assessments Branch where he established the Coast Guard’s Cyber Red Team, an elite team that performs cyber threat emulation on Coast Guard networks to proactively discover vulnerabilities and evaluate network defenses. He has also served at Coast Guard Headquarters where he managed enterprise technologies, and as a deck watch officer aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kukui (WLB 203).
