Maritime Cyber Threats research group
Investigating marine cyber threats at all levels

We continuously engage in discussions and collaborative research with academia, government and industry in areas related to maritime cyber-threats. We have access to the University ship simulators, and the team is in active collaboration to secure the Mayflower Autonomous Ship project and creating relevant maritime-security training .
Attackers or hackers can use ransomware to hold a target hostage for ransom. This can have unique outcomes in the maritime environment, as it could either lock crew or passengers in their rooms (for example, on a cruise ship) or possibly even lock ship controls, leaving the entire ship drifting and vulnerable at sea. To raise awareness, researchers at Plymouth University have filmed this scenario on one of the university’s ship simulator, while researching technological and policy-based solutions.
Not all cyber-attacks result in physical or even noticeable actions. Some of the most sophisticated attacks, like corporate espionage, may never even be detected. In this scenario, an attempt to steal data from the ship bridge has accidentally, and temporarily, corrupted anti-collision software (AIS) and caused phantom ships to appear close to the ship. Researchers at Plymouth University filmed this scenario to raise awareness on these kinds of maritime cyber-issues, as misinformation can be confusing, particularly in bad weather, and crew can lose trust in the ship systems or accidents can occur. It is important to realise that not all attacks are “flashy”, and even if a system goes back to behaving normally, crew should be trained to recognize whether a cyber-attack is occurring and the system will continue to be compromised until fixed.
Centre for Security, Communications and Network Research
Maritime law and economics
Navigation and maritime science
Graham Adnitt
Chris Pollard
Psychology
Marine commercialisation
Professor Kevin D. Jones Executive Dean Faculty of Science and Engineering