Freight transport insurer TT Club has shared advice on 'Not Petya' from an executive within another Thomas Miller division after identifying cyber security threats in the container shipping industry.
Alexis Cahalan, a Principal Lawyer at Thomas Miller Law in Sydney, stated that the attack presented shipping with “a reality which needs to be addressed by all participants” at the Trans- Pacific Asia Conference in China last month.
She pointed out that vulnerable operations could be characterized by factors such as widespread office networks, a reliance on multiple third party suppliers and in-house, legacy IT systems.
Cahalan also found that global logistics communities lacked open communication and were not reporting damaging cyber experiences.
Read a TT Club technical paper about how to avoid major incidents when loading cargo in 'Safety Initiatives: A Prime Tool' by Storrs-Fox from TT Club
In an announcement, TT Club said that freight transport operators take risks through a lack of smartphone ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) procedures and rapidly changing supply chain technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things).
A solution suggested by Cahalan at the conference was to employ “a corporate culture of risk management” to assess cyber attack vulnerabilities within individual companies and to develop a response framework.
View transport and logistics insurance solutions from TT Club
Cahalan said: “Employee awareness of the potential dangers of day-to-day activities will help with cyber defences.
“Trust in email communication, auto-connect Wi-Fi settings and password protocols, peripheral equipment and flash drives, computers in general, should all be monitored and reviewed.
“Staff and contractors should be brought to understand that the critical balance between ease of operation and security may bring inconvenience.
“A corporate culture that articulates, enforces and educates cyber defence will achieve much in terms of mitigating risk.”
