As I have written before, I am a big fan of the sharing of cyber intrusion information so all industries can learn from one another. No industry is immune from cyber-attacks.

But this is a new one, and good to know for the maritime industry. The Verizon RISK team reports that a shipping company hired the team to investigate the loss of valuable cargo on multiple occasions that had been targeted by tech savvy pirates. The pirates were able to hack into the ship’s system to determine where the valuable cargo was located on numerous ships and then steal it when came ashore. When the losses began to mount up, the Verizon RISK team was hired.

Although the Verizon RISK team was reportedly able to track the hacking through the ship’s logs, and the attack was unsophisticated, the result was significant for the shipping company, which lost valuable cargo on multiple occasions.

Ships are loaded with computer systems that need to be protected like any other industry. The maritime industry is at risk and may consider placing data security high on the priority list.