ROUGH SEAS

WHETHER YOU’RE ON LAND OR SEA, CYBERCRIMINALS WILL FIND A WAY TO EXPLOIT YOUR VULNERABILITIES AND FIND A WAY TO WREAK HAVOC IN YOUR IT SYSTEMS. LIKE ANY INDUSTRY, THE MARITIME SECTOR IS NOT IMMUNE TO CYBER RISKS AND THREATS AND INCREASED DIGITISATION IN THE FIELD PRESENT GROWING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CYBERCRIMINALS TO PURSUE.

With immense power and scale coupled with a sense of mystery, it is no wonder that the sea has long been a source of myth and legend.

There have been countless stories told of the ocean waves, but few are as eerie as that of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship said to have been condemned to continually sail the seven seas without reaching port.

Sailors on other ships were hardly eager for this vessel to come into view, since a sighting was a portent of doom.

The legend is often linked to the Dutch East India Company of the 1600s, when the Netherlands was the unquestioned global maritime superpower.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and the era of the ghost ship – one that sails the seas without a soul on board – could be with us again, albeit in a very different guise.

Autonomous shipping is now fast appearing over the horizon, as evidenced by, among other things, the fact that a 12-metre autonomous vessel crossed the sea from the United Kingdom to Belgium in the middle of last year.

Norway, meanwhile, is building the Yara Birkeland, a full-sized autonomous cargo ship that could be launched later this year. The vessel will sail up and down Norway’s coast.

As with autonomous road vehicles, such ships raise obvious cybersecurity risks, such as the danger that hackers might gain access to the navigation systems. Would criminals be able to start guiding the vessel so that it became a modern-day Flying Dutchman, under the control of a shadowy malign power?

There are, of course, myriad cybersecurity threats associated with conventionally crewed ships too, with the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which is based on the use of transponders, GPS and chart display systems potentially vulnerable.