News / Cyber-attacks a bigger threat to cargo owners than cargo ships

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A report this week revealed that shipping supply chains are being affected by an alarming number of cyber-attacks – but despite the geopolitics, cargo owners not shipowners should be the ones on the lookout, one expert told The Loadstar.

A survey by Thetius, CyberOwl, and HFW this week found 25% of respondents had no cyber-risk insurance – with a a further 42% unaware such a type of insurance even existed.

Attacks on shoreside offices and infrastructure usually take the form of ransomware, malicious code designed to encrypt a company’s server data, followed by a ransom demand for it to be unlocked.

Given their purpose is to be as lucrative as possible, such attacks are not finely targeted, but spread haphazardly through company systems.

The report suggests that ransomware appears increasingly to be a ‘cost of doing business’ for maritime industry companies. The number of ransom payments has increased: only 3% of respondents in 2022 admitting paying a ransom; with 14% reported in this year’s survey.

Conspiracy theories that emerged following the Dali and Ever Given incidents – the latter mentioned in the Thetius report – demonstrate a popular preoccupation for nightmare scenarios of targeted ‘hacktivism’ and damage on a blockbuster scale.

But attacks are almost always motivated by money and are more likely targeted at cargo rather than vessels, explained Ken Munro, CEO of white-hat hacking firm PenTestPartners.

“We have seen targeted attacks against port infrastructure… compromising of port systems in order to disguise drug shipments,” he said. “We have seen containerships boarded and the contents of a very small number of high-value containers stolen. To do that, you need to have hacked one of the systems that contain the ship’s manifest. So there is evidence of very specific hacks [targeted at ships], but it’s very rare.”

Despite the media’s increased attention on ship movements recently, no concomitant increase has been observed in cyber-criminals’ interest in the sector, said Mr Munro.

“In some of the high-profile ship crashes, people speculate about big hacks, when by far the most likely explanation is just poor seamanship, or poor maintenance.

“Every ship has different systems, so it’s quite a long and complicated process. Don’t get me wrong, there are security flaws with ships; but seeing them actually exploited is very rare in our experience. It usually happens by accident.

“A ransomware attack against financial services, shore-based firms, will be just as lucrative, and much easier.”

Insofar as critical infrastructure does fall prey to cyberattack, it is much more likely to be on shore, he confirmed.

“So the US Coast Guard has just put out some regulations, and while they do affect US-flagged vessels, they acknowledge the majority of the problems are within the port systems.”