US government agencies are tracking cyber threats against nearly 20 shipping vessels around the world, and the Coast Guard has asked for advance notice if any of those ships plan to call at a US port, according to US officials. Several commercial vessels were targeted in potential cyberattacks in late August, a CISA official said, noting that attackers did not appear to have taken control of the ships themselves. The Coast Guard boarded two inbound foreign-flagged commercial vessels in the Gulf of Mexico — on 21 and 24 August — to "ensure integrity of the vessel's operational and information technology systems following indications that the networks of both vessels were compromised," and says there are currently no reports of operational disruption, vessel instability, physical danger to crews or environmental impacts. The investigation runs alongside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. This sits behind the port-level figure above and establishes that the maritime threat is being worked at the vessel layer as well as the facility layer, in a sector where navigation, communications and cargo handling are now software-defined functions distributed across ship, shore and third-party vendors.

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