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What’s new: Ships enroute the U.S. boarded by US Coast Guard and FBI because they were compromised by cyberattacks.
Why it’s important:
- Large commercial vessels are large! Sheer bulk and often the cargo make them very dangerous if they are out of control.
- Such vessels tend to have very few cyber protections and unsophisticated navigation systems.
- Interference with GPS has caused ships to collide, ground, and catch fire.
What else to know
- One of the vessels was the VL Prosperity registered in Liberia. The VL signifies that it is a Very Large oil carrier. It can carry 96.6 million gallons of crude oil.
- Between 15 and 25 oil tankers arrive in the U.S. each day.
- Iranian media seemed to have a lot of knowledge about this very early on. The article mentions Iran as a probable source of the cyber attacks.
- This article “How to steal a ship” might be of interest.
- VL Prosperity was last reported at Houston/Galveston, TX.
Two US-bound vessels apparently compromised by hackers, US officials say
WASHINGTON/LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) – US Coast Guard and FBI personnel boarded two commercial vessels bound for the United States in the Gulf of Mexico last month after indications that hackers had broken into their computer networks, the agencies said on Thursday.
The unusual operation, carried out on August 21 and August 24 aboard two foreign-flagged ships, comes as US authorities grapple with a series of cyber incidents that media reports have linked to Iran since the outbreak of conflict between Washington and Tehran.
