Increased Marine Cyber Risk during COVID- 19 Lockdown
Read about the Covid-19 pandemic and how it has created a cyber vulnerability that shipowners cannot afford to ignore.
Captain Thomas Brown | 3 April 2020
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoreline witnessed an upswing in marine cyber enquiries, with many shipowner clients approaching a tipping point on their buying decisions around Marine Cyber Insurance. If anything, the current pandemic, must crystalize such thoughts into action. Now has to be the right time for shipowners to protect their already weakened balance sheets against the further debilitating effect of an unwelcome cyber-attack.
Like us, cyber criminals are self-isolating with nothing better to do than think of novel ways to exploit our businesses. All this at a time when our cyber security may be stretched to the limit with many employees working from home via unsecured, domestic internet connections, with the ordinary spans of financial control similarly stretched due to unfamiliar remote working practices, making spear fishing and social engineering threats far harder to detect. Warnings of fraudulent COVID-19 testing invoices, COVID-19 malware and spoof virus advice web domains are the tip of this cyber iceberg. Internal risks have also increased as some companies have been forced to furlough and or make some of their employees redundant, heightening the risk of cyber disruption by disgruntled employees.
A shipowners’ cyber vulnerability must now be of genuine concern to most company risk managers, with too little time to practically manage this unprecedented risk, one answer must be to transfer the risk out of the business.
Shorelines’ newly launched SME - Marine Cyber Cover will do just that, at a price that will not unduly impact the balance sheet further, but will provide peace of mind at a time of great uncertainty.
Contact us today to receive a very rough pricing indication on the basis of very limited information; all we need is a fleet list including details of owned and operated tonnage and an estimate of the annual company turnover.
It costs nothing to be informed and we are only too happy to help you explore the cost and availability of this new and evermore essential, insurance cover.
Visit www.shoreline.bm/solutions/maritime-cyber-insurance/ for detailed product information.