Services unveiled as cyber incidents become as common as piracy

WTW has revealed CyNav, a product it developed with cyber risk cover specifically for ship operators and owners. It offers cover against cyber attacks at a time the maritime industry is increasingly concerned about threats to operations.

Maritime cyber incidents such as a cyber attack on Maersk in 2017, have seen financial and reputational losses exceed US$300M.

WTW global head of marine Ben Abraham said this cover comes as cyber events are becoming almost as common as maritime piracy. “Barely a week goes by without new cyber events affecting the maritime sector,” he said. “Many are minor and unreported, but the major cases have caused consequential commercial losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

He said CyNav offers a pioneering marine-specific cyber solution. “In an environment of increasing ingenuity of cyber criminals and increasing levels of cyber security governance in the maritime industry, CyNav anticipates the protection shipowners need to mitigate their cyber risk.”

CyNav includes crisis management costs cover which protects shipowners in the face of ransomware attacks and data breaches, and business interruption cover in the event of a cyber incident that disrupts operations even where the incident occurs at a third-party IT service provider upon which the shipowner relies.

CyNav includes property damage and loss of hire cover arising from a cyber-attack or satellite communication interference, such as GPS spoofing, and loss of hire cover arising from disruption to or detainment of a vessel following a cyber-attack. It also covers fines and defence costs arising from regulatory actions, including those under GDPR and the Network and Information Systems Directive (NISD).

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Shipping companies need to ensure cyber security and risk management are within safety management systems from 1 January 2021 under revisions to IMO’s International Safety Management (ISM) Code. This requires vessel operators to demonstrate compliance with completion of risk assessment of shipboard IT systems.

Operators also need to demonstrate they have detailed procedures to manage cyber security risks from January 2021.

Owners of specialised tanker tonnage are already required to demonstrate similar preparedness under the Tanker Management and Self Assessment version 3 (TMSA) and Ship Inspection Report Program (SIRE) requirements.

Marlink introduced a full ITLink portfolio of added value services in 2019. This operational platform enables Marlink customers to standardise, simplify and automate their vessel IT environment.

In April 2020, Marlink introduced a simplified IT monitoring tool, enabling shoreside teams or administrators to view the IT system status and availability, providing visibility on compliance with regulatory and charterer requirements.

Marlink’s full ITLink suite was designed for IT department managers and administrators to provide remote fleet-wide monitoring status of shipboard servers, computers, operating system and applications to efficiently achieve transparency of software and hardware on board.

This service reports operating system, software and hardware details together with established key performance indicators to an onshore dashboard, removing the requirement for the crew to record and report this information.

In addition, Marlink has supplied XChange Telemed healthcare diagnosis kits to French emergency medical response teams to support Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente during the coronavirus outbreak. These kits are usually provided to ship operators for remote telemedicine services.

Cyber security risks and solutions will be covered during Riviera’s series of webinars during 2020. For more details of webinar weeks click here