Ocean freight operators and proprietary vessel concerns on average pay $3 million in ransom every time their cyber security is breached by hackers, a new report has found.
Fittingly called The Great Disconnect, the 43-page report also reveals that the maritime industry appears to be woefully unprepared for the risk of dark web violations of high-level digital integrity.
The report was compiled with the participation of a strong and diversely representative sample size of the ocean freight industry, having involved 200 people, ranging from cyber security experts to seafarers, shore-side managers and suppliers.
Coming as it does after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – now almost a month old – and with ensuing warnings that another major cyber breach was imminent, the report highlights the increased risk that the conflict in Eastern Europe poses for global supply chain concerns.
It also comes in the wake of a recent alert issued by Google that its Threat Analysis Group (GTA) had detected similar developments that led to 2017’s damaging Petya-style cyber breach of Maersk’s systems – a hack that was so severe it temporarily led to a wholesale shutdown of the line’s online systems.
The GTA alert in early March* stressed that, from the data it was monitoring, the perceived threat was coming out of Belarus and Russia.
However, despite the increased risk to cyber security, global ocean freight systems remain alarmingly exposed to being breached, The Great Disconnect reports.
According to its findings, at least two-thirds of the people it approached were not aware whether the companies they represented were insured against cyberattacks.
Moreover, ship owners, to a large extent, fail to secure the digital bona fides of their service providers, with only 55% of those approached confirming that they make the necessary cyber security checks.
The report, which was compiled by maritime internet security company, CyberOwl, along with Thetius and HFW, an industry innovator and law firm respectively, also showed that complacency about cyber security seemed to increase with role superiority.
It showed that about 26% of seafarers did not know what to do in the event of a cyberattack.
Comparatively speaking, 38% of their superiors had no response plan in the event of an online security incident.
Some respondents didn’t even know whether the companies they represented had a standard response plan in the event of a breach.
* Read this for context: https://tinyurl.com/3t26tx4a
