Maine Maritime Museum trustees honored the Maine Pilotage Commission and the Port of Portland Board of Harbor Commissioners, two groups that oversee Maine’s maritime pilots, on Wednesday afternoon.

For a decade, the museum has recognized an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to Maine’s maritime heritage and influenced the state’s culture and economy.

And with the importance of Maine’s maritime economy, keynote speaker Rear Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of the First Coast Guard District, addressed the significance of cyber threats, saying that the Coast Guard and other maritime entities are not immune to these kinds of threats.

“Things are changing for us dramatically as a country and an industry,” she said. “The new state of the art ships couldn’t be any more different than what we had 100 years ago. The cyber threat is absolutely real.”

Now that ships have computer systems that need to be updated and monitored, Fagan emphasized the importance of cyber security and the risk of mechanical systems being controlled through a computer system.

“My challenge for some of the ship operators is … what types of checks and balances or safety measures do you have in place to know what was that update?” she said.

Fagan described a time when she vis- ited crew members on a cruise ship and questioned the captain about a man who was examining the software on the ship.

The captain had brushed away the individual as just an “IT guy,” though he was unsure as to what exactly he was working on.

“The captain should have been as concerned with that guy as with the access control that they have in front of the ship,” Fagan said. “Either intentional malware or a disconcerted glitch can be introduced into multiple, multiple systems on the ship.”

Fagan said it was also easy for perpetrators to simply do a Google search to find a default password to gain access to the facility and potentially breach the system.

“You wouldn’t walk out of the front door of your house and lock it and leave the back door unlocked,” she said. “You’d be astonished at how many systems are just sitting open with the default password unchanged.”

Fagan also warned against plugging in unknown thumb drives or opening suspicious emails.

“This isn’t theoretical, it’s happening,” she added.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who delivered the event’s closing remarks, agreed with Fagan about the increasing importance of cyber security.

“This cyber thing is no joke, it’s really serious,” he said. “The number one threat that we’ve been hearing from professional, intelligence, and military and security people for the past two years, is cyber.

“The next Pearl Harbor will be cyber. It will be a disabling attack and we keep getting warning shots,” he added, alluding to the recent incidents that happened at OPM, Sony Pictures and Target.

However, King said he was hopeful that upcoming legislation would be a cyber security bill that will allow sharing between the government and the private sector to deal with this threat.

King also commended the maritime pilots for their hard work.

“They’re sort of like air, we don’t notice them until it isn’t there,” he said. “And the pilots do extraordinary work in guiding these great ships into our ports and providing a huge economic boost to the people in Maine and also the people in the country.”