An anonymous cyber-crime reporting site for the maritime industry will go live in October, with aircraft giant Airbus operating the website for the CSO Alliance.
The European aircraft manufacturer will run the site, developed by the alliance for company shipping security officers, ensuring it has state-of-the-art cyber-security and can cope with the demands on it.
The portal will provide alliance members with cyber-security information, news of incidents and advice on how to handle them, plus live data.
A confidential forum will allow members to communicate with each other to exchange experiences and share advice on dealing with risks.
Founder Mark Sutcliffe says CSO Alliance, which has 400 members in 40 countries, provides a platform for “geo-located and verified maritime crime reports, a way to share and discuss risk information and get access to naval watch keepers delivered on a tight budget”.
“The aim is simple: We have one world for all maritime assets to share ideas and information to report and so more effectively combat maritime and cyber-crime,” he told TradeWinds.
The plan is to develop a cyber-security methodology for all transport sectors. Airbus, which first met CSO Alliance in 2014, has 600 staff in its cyber division and is the target of 20,000 attempted hacks per month. Cyber security is essential, to ensure no aircraft’s security can be compromised.
“Building upon our strong and established experience in maritime domain awareness, we are supporting CSO Alliance to develop an effective and collective tool which will empower shipowners and operators, ports, insurers, flag states and classification societies to improve overall safety and security,” said Olivier Surly, head of maritime solutions at Airbus Space & Defence.
From 2021, cyber-security will become part of the International Safety Management code, which already requires all security risks to be acted on.
Main partners
Initial main partners in the CSO Alliance are shipowners organisation Bimco, North P&I Club, the Marshall Islands register and classification society DNV GL. Sutcliffe says it has had indications that more flags, protection-and-indemnity (P&I) clubs and class will join.
The alliance has “taken time to get this right”, he says, adding that focusing on crime reporting can help to combat it.
Sutcliffe cites the issue of stowaways, who are costing protection-and-indemnity (P&I) clubs more than $19.6m per year, dealing with an average of 64 incidents a month. Data shows that 70% of cases relate to 10 African ports.
“If a captain knows most attacks happen at a certain berth in a particular port, he and the crew can know to be more vigilant,” he said.
