The importance of cyber security reached prominence within the superyacht industry during the 2016 IMO conference on maritime safety. Since then, there have been reports of superyachts being remotely controlled by hackers, large companies such as Maersk and Voyager Worldwide have been devastated by ransomware attacks, and the most recent maritime cyber-attack, the DNV ShipManager software incident, which effected more than 1000 of their clients. Following these cases, and many more not brought to the public’s attention, cyber security must be considered for future safety in this industry.
In the last few years, we have seen the development of SMART marinas and SMART yachts, this advancement in digitalising the industry increases the threat surface giving hackers new opportunities for exploitation. The connectivity of all systems working together and communicating with one another creates a seamless experience for the yacht owner, however these interconnected systems can also provide hackers a seamless route to all Operational Technology (OT) such as navigation systems etc. and Information Technology onboard.
For a long time, the maritime sector has mostly turned a blind eye to cyber security, the transient nature of this business traditionally meant that superyachts were perceived to be a moving target with minimal connectivity to the Internet, which were too difficult to attack and provided little value to hackers. However, with the new wave of fast connectivity (satellite internet constellation) and the increase in popularity of expedition yachts, these HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) will not only be able to reach more remote areas of the globe whilst remaining connected but will also increase their vulnerability to cyber-attacks.
Access to technology and the latest trends is another key aspect to the superyacht industry. With ever evolving technology comes the responsibility to ensure your crew are educated on keeping these systems up-to-date and safe from attacks. Crew training on cyber security is another layer to securing these vessels.
Here at CND, we ensure your crew have all the tools and knowledge to maintain a healthy digital posture. Our consultancy capabilities range from Cyber Risk Assessment to Incident Response and everything in between to prevent an attack.
Hackers are constantly finding new ways to infiltrate yachts and that is why we are extremely proud to offer a Security Operations Centre (SOC) to our clients. Our monitoring facility is headquartered in the Isle of Man, from which it monitors, assesses, and defends our client information systems and users from an attack.
As part of our SOC services, we deploy our sensor within your network, this collects all the logs from your devices, monitors the network traffic, and scans everything inside your network for vulnerabilities which an attacker might exploit.
Our skilled and experienced analysts can adapt to offer various service levels within the SOC to compliment your cyber maturity. Currently, our most popular SOC service is Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
The CND Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service is where our SOC analysts, security engineers and incident responders, ingest a wealth of information from your yacht and correlates it with other events and intelligence to produce a meaningful security picture. The SOC monitors your yacht for cyber security events, alerting you to any suspicious activity 24 hours per day. The service doesn’t stop with an alert, our experts are on hand to respond and provide understandable advice on what has been detected and what that might mean to your vessel and how the threat might be countered.
CND’s Managed Detection & Response service combines several cyber security services into one simple and affordable solution. The solution is scalable due to the main analytical platform being cloud-based. CND work with the client to capture their requirements and to understand their technical needs in order to provide the correct level of assistance to achieve Full Operation Capability (FOC) as cost effectively and rapidly as possible.
We become your cyber security eyes and ears, keeping you informed at a level you are comfortable with, enabling you to concentrate on operating the vessel.
Please speak to our team today for further information, contact us through https://www.cndltd.com/ or meet us at the Superyacht Technology Network Summit On The Go on January 31st 2023.
