Ensuring cybersecurity in shipping: Reference to Estonian shipowners

Abstract

Ships, ports and offshore facilities are increasingly becoming dependent on modern information and opera-tional technology. Cyber incidents on ships can create disruptions of critical systems that cause problems for the ship’s safe operation. Therefore, the shipowners must be prepared to cope with rising cyber threats. In or-der to prevent cyber incidents happening on ships and in the companies, essential steps must be taken on the management level. This paper introduces results of two surveys on cybersecurity and cyber awareness carried out in between 2017 – 2019 among the shipping companies operating in Estonia. Feedback was received from 12 shipowners out of 19 and the results show that at least 7 organisations had been the victims to different types of cyberattacks. The results indicate that shipowners are not paying enough of attention to potential cyber threats and education of their employees. Finally, the paper proposes cyber risk mitigation means for the shipowners.