Maritime industry vulnerable to cyber-crime
Plenty of phish in the sea, warns ESC Global Security Advancement in broadband technologies and the move towards Big Data' will leave the maritime industry vulnerable to cyber-crime unless it develops a better awareness of ICT security and adopts security best practice, warns ESC Global Security's head of cyber security division, Joseph Carson."There is the potential for a major cyber-attack on the maritime industry to significantly disrupt food and energy supplies given that shipping transports 90% of the world's global trade. Certainly there is the possibility for AIS, GNSS, ENC and ECDIS charts to disappear from bridge screens or be modified, but the issue today is that most adversaries want to obtain data for financial gain or criminal activities."He says that payment systems, for example, can be easily attacked using phishing scams to raise fake invoices or even to change shipping manifests in order to transport illicit goods, drugs and weapons.Echoing comments made by World Economic Forum managing director Espen Barth Eide at Nor-Shipping last week, that "every conflict we see in the future will be a cyber-conflict," Carson says that while the threat is indeed a real one, greater computer literacy and security awareness can reduce the risk of ...
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