Maritime transport sector digitalisation; Is it cyber-secure?

The last twenty years, the maritime transport sector, invested in cutting edge technology to enhance productivity, develop efficient maritime supply chains and facilitate the interactions between several stakeholders. The aforementioned investments in technology assisted the maritime transport sector to decrease its operational costs. To this aim, digital platforms, automation and several technologies including blockchain, and internet of things (IoT) are used by vessels and port authorities. However, as the sector becomes more digitalised the attack surface increases and the potential cyber-actors apply numerous tools to achieve their aims. Several entities were subjected to cyber-attacks recently (e.g. COSCO, etc.), which highlights the need of all the stakeholders to develop and implement proper strategies for an evolving cyber-resilient maritime transport ecosystem. A big challenge is that the operators and the shipowners will finally understand the threats from a cyber-perspective. The purpose of the research is to present the current cyber-threat landscape in the maritime transport sector and provide solutions to the problem.