SIMIC

CYBERCRIMINALS targeting maritime industries are refining tactics, improving operational efficiency, and embracing new technologies to broaden their attacks, according to a Marlink, reports London's Port Technology International.

Paris and Oslo-based Marlink markets IT solutions, has its Security Operations Centre (SOC) report covering cybercrime in the six months to December 2024.



The company's global network of SOCs monitored 1,998 merchant and leisure vessels and recorded nine billion security events and 39 billion firewall events; 718,000 alerts and 10,700 malware incidents detected as well as 50 managed major incidents.



One of the most significant developments has been an increase in the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (genAI). Off-the-shelf large language models (LLMs) have become a critical tool for hackers, allowing them to accelerate malware development, automate phishing campaigns and refine social engineering tactics.



This has led to a surge in AI-assisted cyberattacks. Some actors have leveraged genAI to assist in developing malicious scripts and exploits designed to specifically target cybersecurity vulnerabilities (CVEs).