Shipping’s use of fractured and dated computer systems has left the gates wide open for cyber attacks on ships, the Capital Link conference was told.
Mark O’Neil, chief executive of maritime services group Columbia, said mergers and consolidation within the industry had brought together ill-suited legacy systems with weak cyber defences.
“They’re not just cracks for hackers to get in — these are wide open gates,” O’Neil told a session at the London conference on shipping.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to hack some of these shipping companies or the ships. It’s very easy. It probably hasn’t happened more because it’s not that exciting to do.”
The threat from cyber attacks has rapidly moved up the industry’s agenda, with a new survey of 100 global maritime leaders ranking it as the second-highest threat to global shipping behind only political instability.
Political instability also played into the threat of state-backed hacking, along with criminal operations designed to extort cash from victims.
Experts have warned that the industry could be an attractive target for terrorist groups if they could block a major waterway with a cyber attack on a vessel to disrupt supply chains and draw global attention.
The threat of cyber attacks overtook financial instability as one of the biggest threats in this year’s barometer report by the International Chamber of Shipping.
“Ships are no longer stand-alone units and have been connected all over the world,” ICS secretary general Guy Platten told the conference.
He described the barometer as a study of the issues that keep shipping leaders up at night.
The report cited shipping’s growing dependence on computer systems following the Covid-19 pandemic.
It followed other reports of increasing attacks on the maritime sector. A US Coast Guard report into cyber trends in the marine sector said ransomware attacks had increased by 80%, with the amounts demanded to unlock systems three times higher in 2023 compared with the previous year.
In a TradeWinds article last week, the use of out-of-date computer systems in shipping was cited by a prominent researcher, who criticised the maritime sector for lagging behind other industries.
Stephen McCombie, a professor of maritime IT security at NHL Stenden University of Applied Science in the Netherlands, said that shipping was a decade behind banks and insurance companies.
His department has compiled a database that has charted more than 160 incidents, including Russia spoofing the location of Nato ships visiting Ukraine in the Black Sea in 2021.
Read more
- ‘If you can hit one ship, you can hit 1,000’: Why shipping is playing catch-up on cyber attacks
- How marine insurers are plugging the gap in cyber attack cover
- Here are the ports and shipping companies impacted by the global CrowdStrike software outage
- New UK shipping minister arrives with ‘much to be done’ after general election landslide
- Shipowners join newbuilding dash as costly cyber rules loom
