Defending against the cyber attacker

Shipping and Cybersecurity

By Félix Griman Cybersecurity expert

When the news reports a cybercrime, there will be a large number of companies that will clench their teeth thinking of the havoc these attacks represent, especially the lack of trust that their customers will experience towards that particular company.

In shipping as in most industries, there is actually a lack of infrastructure and personnel dedicated to detect, avoid and reject those intrusions and attacks from the outside. This is due to incorrectly assuming that these intrusions and hacking only happens to banks, financial industry, government security agencies or even the media.

The fact is that hacking, intrusions, attacks, stealing information, systems alteration etc., is such a reality and unfortunately, many companies do not realize that they are being affected by these kinds of crimes.

The dangers of having an open door for these attackers range from simple password stealing, to credit card data and/or personal information, payroll data, an enterprise’s confidential transactions, shipment data, drugs trafficking, smuggling, hardware and operating systems malfunctioning and destroying of systems.

All of us know how or what could be accomplished when an attacker steals information or data, but in most cases, companies don’t know that they might be shut down due to having their computers, communications, software or storage compromised or corrupted. This brings another big issue for any industry – how can they keep their business up and running, or applying a system backup, as most of them may lack a business continuity plan in case they are greatly affected by such attackers.

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