Page 33: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q2 2016)

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Mariners Urged to Get In Front of Growing Threat

By Patricia Keefe efore any vessel gets ready to head out to sea, shore- Where’s the Fire?

based personnel and onboard crew run down a lengthy What could possibly happen to a vessel out in the middle

Blist of safety, compliance and regulatory checks, all part of the ocean? A lot, actually, thanks in part to the industry’s of a standard risk management exercise. What’s often not on increasing reliance on technology. A look at the incidents re- that list is an invisible, but looming risk that if ignored, could ported so far – ranging from fake charts and invoices, to drug leave ships off course, off schedule or even dead in the wa- smuggling, to compromised rigs and ship systems – is just the ter, thanks to infected computer systems, phony or corrupted tip of the cyber iceberg lying in wait for a modern-day unpre- charts and blocked communications signals. pared Titanic, worry security experts.

Cyber crime has come of age in the maritime sector. Ob- The attacks run the gamut, employing phishing, social engi- servers like Futurenautics claim the maritime industry is ac- neering, malware, viruses, worms, denial of service, keystroke tually “overexposed” when capture, skimmers, Trojans, it comes to cyber risk man- ransomware, signal jamming, “It has to start with the leadership