As the use of cyber technology spreads worldwide, ports and terminals are at greater risk to economic and commercial damage, according to specialist port insurer TT Club.
The insurance and risk management services provider says while advanced IT systems provide greater opportunities for transport operators and cargo handling facilities to lessen their exposure to theft and fraud, such increased sophistication also benefits those with criminal intent.
“We see incidents which at first appear to be a petty break-in at office facilities. The damage appears minimal – nothing is physically removed,” said Mike Yarwood, freight insurance specialist. “More thorough post-incident investigations however reveal that the ‘thieves’ were actually installing spyware within the operator’s IT network.”
Yet, the most common targets are individuals’ personal devices where cyber security is less adequate. Hackers often make use of social networks to target operational personnel who travel, and truck drivers to ascertain routing and overnight parking patterns.
The type of information begin sought and extracted may be release codes for containers from terminal facilities or passwords to discover delivery instructions, TT Club explained.
“There has been an apparent focus on specific individual containers in attempts to track the units through the supply chain to the destination port. Such systematic tracking is coupled with compromising the terminal’s IT systems to gain access to, or generate release codes for specific containers,” explained Mr Yarwood.
“Criminals are known to have targeted containers with illegal drugs in this way however, such methods also have greater scope in facilitating high volume thefts and human trafficking,” he added.
Now, TT Club is advising operators to be vigilant and is calling for employees to be educated about the robust risk management policies designed to defend their organisation form cyber-crime. “Often the level of threat is determined on an organisations’ own culture,” Mr Yarwood concluded.
