Reducing the Cyber-Attack Surface in the Maritime Sector via Individual Behaviour Change

The maritime sector has been a target for cyber-attacks during the past years. Humans play a significant role in cyber security in a dual fashion; on the one hand, human error allows for the majority of attacks to be successful, as in the case of ransomware attacks via phishing, and on the other hand, appropriate security behaviours can serve as a strong line of defence. We advocate that security needs to transcend awareness and materialise as behaviour of individuals. The question that we attempt to answer is which conditions are necessary for individuals to follow specific information security behaviours, and how to translate these conditions into a tool of practical value for the maritime industry with the intention of minimising the attack surface. Our suggestion comprises of a) identifying the characteristics of the maritime sector with regards to cyber security behaviour, b) introducing and adapting models of behaviour change from behavioural economics and psychology into maritime cyber security, and c) in the next stage of the research, creating an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based tool for individual cyber behaviour change for enterprise centres, ports and ships.