Our Approach

Detecting targeted attacks

Definitive Guide to Ransomware

Cybersecurity for the Maritime sector

Hunt & Hackett has observed a discerning increase of activity of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups in the maritime sector. There is this legendary saying on how to overcome your adversaries: 'know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated'. To know your enemy starts with gaining an understanding of your threat landscape, your adversaries’ intentions, their modus operandi, and specific attacking methods. The following sections provide a glimpse of the maritime specific threat landscape to highlight what is going on and is followed-up by our approach on how to defend against it. The blog series which can be found at the bottom of this page provides further details of the maritime threat landscape.

Threat landscape

For the maritime industry

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Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)

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Tactics, Techniques & Procedures (TTPs)

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Attack tools

Maritime Maritime + related Broader focus All known
APTs 77 100 287 483
TTPs 1,386 1,785 2,753 3,325
Attack tools 1,137 1,452 2,194 2,806

Maritime faces more cyber threats than ever

To stay in control becomes more difficult

Over the past years, the maritime industry has drawn the attention of nation-state hackers. The threat diagnostics system that was designed by Hunt & Hackett has monitored a sharp increase in cyber-attacks occurring in this particular industry. The maritime industry is struggling due to a staggering growth in global demand, a faltering supply-chain and challenges like industry 4.0 and sustainability. This has caused nation-states and other organizations to actively unroll a strategy of using offensive cyber-capabilities in order to outwit the competition. This has as result that maritime organizations all over the world are being targeted for their IP (Intellectual Property) and technologies and should be taking appropriate measures to address the imminent threat.

Actor motivation over time

The number of cyber attacks on the maritime sector has increased significantly over the last few years. This chart shows the amount of known operations over time, categorized by motivation.

Actor overview

The most active attack groups targeting the maritime sector are shown in the dynamic chart highlighting the relationships between the various threat actors, their motivation and their country of origin.

Knowing the APT groups, their motivations and origin countries provides a solid starting point for understanding what you are up against. To get a more comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape, it is important to research, map, and document your adversaries’ intentions to their modus operandi, attack methods and attack tools, as this provides more actionable information for strenghtening your defences.

To defend against this threat landscape, it is equally important to gain critical insights into the current resilience level of your organization. To understand thyself it is useful to let (third-party) security specialists assess your defenses and simulate meaningful attacks. When done right, such an approach provides critical insights into the resilience level of the organization against its threat landscape. Hunt & Hackett use its proprietary threat modelling-based approach with its clients in the maritime sector to provide meaningful insights as well as tailored solutions for the strategical, tactical, and operational aspects of their cybersecurity program.

Our approach

Controlling your cybersecurity risks

In their fight against cyber-attacks, our customers typically go through several stages of maturity. By ramping up their prevention, detection, and incident readiness over time – and optimizing this for their actual threat landscape – they reach a point where they have developed solid resilience against targeted attacks, with only highly controlled and accepted risks remaining.

There is no simple 'fix' to become resilient against the sophisticated cyber threats of today. Without serious resources or processes for systematic security activities, protection against modern cyber threats like ransomware is just a wish. Hunt & Hackett has developed a unique threat- and sector-driven approach to cybersecurity, enabling you to work from your current situation to a highly improved and controlled situation, optimized for your specific threat landscape and context as an organization.

Our services

Optimized for the maritime sector

Because we use your actual threat landscape and your sector as our starting points, our services can be fully optimised for your specific context and needs.

Managed Detection & Response (MDR)

We detect & react to attacker activity in your environment, minimizing the impact on your business.

Security Program Gap Assessment (SPGA)

We assess your current security program, threat landscape, security controls and risk.

Threat Hunting (TH)

We proactively hunt for evidence about unknown threats to improve your security posture.

Breach & Attack Simulation (BAS)

We validate your security choices by simulating attacks.

Incident Response (IR)

We help you manage a cyber crisis and contain security incidents, breaches and cyber threats.

Our articles about the maritime sector

From Hunt & Hackett experts

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