Cyber-security will come under the remit of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code from 1st January 2021 and measures must be incorporated into your vessels’ Safety Management Systems – good preparation is vital!
In the aftermath of a cyber-attack, having a structured recovery plan will help you not only restore onboard systems and resume normal operations without delay but allow you to learn from the incident, take steps to prevent a repeat and protect other vessels in the fleet.
Set up an incident response team (IRT) comprising both onboard and shore-based personnel and, for complex set-ups, ready access to external experts. After an attack it will be their job to assess the situation, collect evidence for post-mortem analysis, recover data, and restore software. Malware is typically created to evade easy detection and removal, so it is important to be certain that all traces have been properly eradicated before bringing systems back online. .
Conduct regular cyber security exercises, ideally based on real-life events, to keep the response capability effective.
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