A study says port facilities in New York and New Jersey need a cyber backbone and more planning to improve security against a terrorist attack.

Researchers at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken, N.J., found the ports lacked well-coordinated, integrated plans to prevent and respond to attacks. Officials also needed to establish an electronic or cyber backbone for secure, redundant communications and an effective means of responding to multiple events.

The report suggested network-centric operations as the way to improve security. This approach, developed by the U.S. military, relies on communications and computers to inform all the individuals involved of what is going on so they can better coordinate their actions.

When the FBI named the stretch of land between Port Newark and Newark Liberty Airport as the two most dangerous miles in America, the urgency to improve port security in the New York and New Jersey region became undeniably clear, says Jerry MacArthur Hultin, dean of the Howe School of Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology, and formerly under secretary of the Navy.