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Challenges in Maritime Cybersecurity
While the IT world includes systems in offices, ports, and oil rigs, OT is used for a multitude of purposes such as controlling engines and associated systems, cargo management, navigational systems, administration, etc. Until recent years, these systems were commonly isolated from each other and from any external shore-based systems. However, the evolution of digital and communications technology has allowed the integration of these two worlds, IT and OT. The maritime OT world includes systems like:- Vessel Integrated Navigation System (VINS)
- Global Positioning System (GPS)
- Satellite Communications
- Automatic Identification System (AIS)
- Radar systems and electronic charts
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- OT systems are responsible for real-time performance, and response to any incidents is time-critical to ensure the high reliability and availability of the systems.
- Access to OT systems should be strictly controlled without disrupting the required human-machine interaction.
- Safety of these systems is paramount, and fault tolerance is essential. Even the slightest downtime may not be acceptable.
- OT systems present extended diversity with proprietary protocols and operating systems, often without embedded security capabilities.
- They have long lifecycles, and any updates or patches to these systems must be carefully designed and implemented (usually by the vendor) to avoid disrupting reliability and availability.
- The OT systems are designed to support the intended operational process and may not have enough memory and computing resources to support the addition of security capabilities.
Maritime Cyber Threat Landscape
Completely digitalized shipping means greater reliance on digital, interconnected control and communication systems, says Isidoros Monogioudis, Adjunct Professor at the Hellenic American University.Maritime digitalization is planned to increase performance, efficacy, and better collaboration within the industry. However, at the same time it means a significant increase of the digital/cyber “attack” surface. Maritime industry, especially through vessels digitalization and with the numerous different Operational Technology devices deployed, creates a digital landscape previously unknown to a big extent due to the specific hardware and software being used. New security risks will be evolved with the impact being very significant mainly due to the direct connection with the physical world and the consequent operational damage.In fact, it was only last July that the U.S. Coast Guard issued a safety alert warning all shipping companies of maritime cyber-attacks. The incident that led to this warning happened in February 2019 when a large ship on an international voyage bound for the Port of New York and New Jersey reported “a significant cyber incident impacting their shipboard network.” The Coast Guard led an incident-response team to investigate the issue and found that “although the malware significantly degraded the functionality of the onboard computer system, essential vessel control systems had not been impacted.” This was not the first time the U.S. Coast Guard had released a cyber safety warning. In May 2019, they published a bulletin to raise the awareness of maritime stakeholders of “email phishing and malware intrusion attempts that targeted commercial vessels.” A cyber incident in ships might have severe consequences for the crew, the passengers, and the cargo on board. Considering that many ships carry harmful substances, a cyber incident might have severe environmental consequences or might lead to hijacking the ship to steal the cargo. The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) has defined a cyber safety incident any incident that leads to “the loss of availability or integrity of safety critical data and OT.” Cyber safety incidents can be the result of:
- a cyber security incident, which affects the availability and integrity of OT (for example, corruption of chart data held in an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS))
- a failure occurring during software maintenance and patching
- loss or manipulation of external sensor data that's critical to the operation of a ship including but not limited to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)
Best Practices for Mitigating Maritime Cyber Threats
In 2017, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted resolution MSC.428(98) on Maritime Cyber Risk Management in Safety Management System (SMS). The Resolution stated that an approved SMS should consider cyber risk management and encourages administrations to ensure that cyber risks are appropriately addressed in safety management systems. The same year, IMO developed guidelines that provide high-level recommendations on maritime cyber risk management to safeguard shipping from current and emerging cyber threats and vulnerabilities. As also highlighted in the IMO guidelines, effective cyber risk management should start at the senior management level. Senior management should embed a culture of cyber risk awareness into all levels and departments of an organization and ensure a holistic and flexible cyber risk management regime that is in continuous operation and constantly evaluated through effective feedback mechanisms. In addition, BIMCO has developed the Guidelines on Cyber Security Onboard Ships, which are aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The overall goal of these guidelines is the building of a strong operational resilience to cyber-attacks. To achieve this goal, maritime companies should follow these best practices:- Identify the threat environment to understand external and internal cyber threats to the ship
- Identify vulnerabilities by developing complete and full inventories of onboard systems and understanding the consequences of cyber threats to these systems
- Assess risk exposure by determining the likelihood and impact of a vulnerability exploitation by any external or internal actor
- Develop protection and detection measures to reduce the likelihood and the impact of a potential exploitation of a vulnerability
- Establish prioritized contingency plans to mitigate any potential identified cyber risk
- Respond and recover from cyber incidents using the contingency plan to ensure operational continuity