Kuala Lumpur: The easy availability of invasive cyber technology poses a greater risk now to legitimate trade, resulting in both economic and commercial damage to the operators, an insurance provider has warned.
While technological advances provide greater operational efficiencies and opportunities for carriers and operators to mitigate their exposure to theft and fraud, unfortunately they equally benefit criminal organisations, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in a press release quoting Insurance and logistics provider TT Club.
It noted that companies, including those in the supply chain sector, were unaware of their costs and liabilities as cyber crime continued to increase.
As invasive cyber technology becomes more widely available and cost effective, a greater risk to legitimate trade is emerging, exposing operators to both economic and commercial damage, the provider said.
"The cyber criminal's ability to hack into email accounts and communication channels is well established, so the risks to the logistics operator cannot be ignored," the insurance provider said.
TT Club said the effectiveness of business operations is dependent on continuous and secure communications channels to receive and fulfil orders, as well as instruct on-site and remote/mobile personnel.
Both interruption to service and infiltration are obvious critical risks.
TT Club is therefore urging firms' management boards to conduct thorough risk assessments and to boost their 'e-perimeter fence'.
Another trend analysts see starting to develop is that cybercrime is becoming more targeted, the Maritime Bureau said quoting KPMG's cyber security practice, which warned that the next 12 months would see criminals become more selective about who they target.
They won't need to maintain the current 'hit and hope' approach of spear phishing, instead only attacking specific users and computers based on the data these give away about their owners.
IMB which functions as a focal point in the fight against maritime crime and malpractice urged companies in the sector to remain vigilant.
IMB said, "Recent events have shown that systems managing the movement of goods need to be strengthened against the threat of cyber-attacks. It is vital that lessons learnt from other industrial sectors are applied quickly to close down cyber vulnerabilities in shipping and the supply chain".
