Maritime Cyber Security
Essential strategies for IT and OT protection

The speed of digitalisation makes the need for effective cybersecurity in the maritime industry ever-more urgent. An effective cybersecurity strategy is critical to protect Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) systems, networks and data within an organisation. The infrastructure at risk encompasses vessels, office sites and data centres all of which host sensitive information from multiple stakeholders within the maritime chain of logistics.

Protecting these assets calls for a combination of cyber awareness, security procedures and regulatory compliance – rules are emerging on national and local levels designed both to protect organisations and hold them accountable in the case of lapses.

Much of the success in combatting cyber security can be delivered by ensuring that best practise for cyber security is followed within an organisation drawing on a cyber security framework that is aligned to corporate business objectives.

A central element of effective cyber security is risk management. Organisations must take into consideration everything inside a corporate network from how it is functioning, its hardware and software components, assets, people and processes, to determine where risk exists and threats may emerge that could hurt corporate operations.

Marlink’s experience working in the maritime industry over many years is that risk management is not always performed to the level required as this approach is still considered new for maritime, whereas in other business sectors it is seen as a standard tool to improve cyber security.

One of the realities that maritime organisations and their stakeholders must face is that the high prevalence of cybercrime means an attack at some point is a certainty. However there are key actions that organisations can take that enable them to prepare for, respond to and prevent cyber-attacks.

To help shipowners and manager put cyber risks in context, we have created a series of blogs based on conversations with our team of cyber experts.

Our experience in delivering cyber solutions across networks and to individual users alike – as well as our work running the maritime industry’s only dedicated Security Operations Centre - means Marlink can provide unique perspectives on how to identify, prepare for and guard against cyber threats.