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data, he was able to falsely broadcast the replicated data, thereby creating an

AIS image that would show on an AIS overlayed ECDIS screen, when in fact nothing was there. The false broadcast contained all of the correct vessel infor- mation, and previously recorded track.

Even though this “broadcast” was kept in house, with the right equipment and know how, this process can be easily duplicated, leaving us to wonder, why is such a system that we rely upon, so vulnerable? Because AIS was designed for safety reasons, such as communica- tion and port state tracking. With the ad- vancement towards Autonomous Ship- ping, the AIS will be relied upon much more than currently. The integration of ECDIS and AIS will be the primary tools used by the AI to handle collision avoidance and navigation on board an unmanned vessel.

In a presentation at the World Mari- time University entitled “Vulnerabili- ties of the Automatic Identi? cation Sys- tem in the Era of Maritime Autonomous

Surface Ships” Dimitrios Dalaklis, Mi- chael Baldauf, and Momoko Kitada 4HE