Is your vessel prone to cyber attacks? How strong is your crew agents in Philippines trained their crew to mitigate the risk of cyber attack? Will your cyber risk management come up with countermeasure and defensive action against cyber attack?
Cyber attacks have become a major concern in maritime industry in Philippines and have grown in rich and complexity. According to the survey, it is said that large companies are well prepared to counteract the security breaches, whereas small and medium sized companies lack cyber security which led major loss to ship owners, and the saddest part is they can’t even figure out the reason of breaches.
Unauthorized access can be done, however, with malware carried onto the vessel by either plugging external device knowingly or unknowingly. It is advisable to train the crew about cyber security and its risk and counteractive measure or hire crew from a crew manning agency who provides better crew training service periodically.
To keep the cyber security intact, make compulsory zero tolerance on unusual act of plugging odd device in the vessel and enforce seafarer to bring their own device themselves.
Cyber attack takes place every week, from data breach to potential damage of vessel and injuries to seafarer caused because of lack of knowledge about cyber security. Fraudulent attempt like phishing to obtain sensitive information is a major threat to safety of the data and other important information. Personnel hired to maintain account details are most likely to vulnerable to this attack.
Place the computer turned away to avoid shoulder surfing, and advice every administrative personnel to turn off their device when not used and confine the unused USB port to block the access of the device.
To be on the safe side of cyber security, engage on shore personnel and off shore team together to address the cyber threat and come up with defensive counter measure against cyber attack. Enhance cyber security once in a while to improve over all security of the vessel and train your crew in good Philippines Seaman training centres to learn both technical and management lesson to reduce the risk of cyber attacks.
