SecurityScorecard Research Unveils Cyber Vulnerabilities Pose a Threat to U.S. Maritime Security

Fremont, CA: With over 12 million companies continuously rated, SecurityScorecard is the global leader in cybersecurity ratings. SecurityScorecard's patented rating technology, developed in 2013 by security and risk experts Dr. Aleksandr Yampolskiy and Sam Kassoumeh, is used by more than 25,000 organizations for enterprise risk management, third-party risk management, board reporting, due diligence, and cyber insurance underwriting. SecurityScorecard is making the world safer by changing how businesses understand, improve, and communicate cybersecurity risk to their employees, boards, and vendors.

SecurityScorecard, the global leader in cybersecurity ratings, has presented a new report on the US shipping industry, "Proactive Security Measures for Global Maritime Shipping." The study discovered that high severity cyber vulnerabilities pose a significant risk to US maritime security, particularly as the holiday season approaches.

In December 2021, SecurityScorecard analyzed the cybersecurity health of 100 global shipping container companies compared to the Forbes Global 2000 companies, concluding that: High severity cyber vulnerabilities pose a significant risk to US maritime security, particularly as the holiday season approaches.

As a whole, the shipping industry's cybersecurity risk posture was better than that of the Forbes Global 2000, but the shipping industry did not outperform the Forbes Global 2000 in every risk group factor.

Vulnerabilities in application security, irregular patching cadence, and network security pose the greatest threats to the sector.

The percentage of data breaches for shipping container companies increased from 2018 to 2021, indicating that the industry may be an increasingly appealing target for malicious cyber actors during the 2021 winter holiday season.

Shipping container companies initially outperformed the Forbes Global 2000 until April 2020, when high-profile attacks drove the industry average down. Shipping container companies have struggled to build resilience in their cybersecurity since mid-2020 and have yet to return to their pre-2020 breach scores.

The COVID-19 pandemic's global supply shortages and shipping disruptions pose a threat to US maritime security and threaten to disrupt the holiday gift-giving season. The maritime shipping network, which accounts for 90 percent of global trade, has deteriorated from a quick and cost-effective system to one plagued by delays, congested shipping lanes, and exorbitant prices.

"The shipping and maritime industry is already strained and taxed by the pandemic and resulting supply chain backlog," remarked Aleksandr Yampolskiy, CEO and co-founder of SecurityScorecard. "A potential cyber incident in the shipping industry could have catastrophic effects on people and businesses all across the world. This research is a key indicator that the industry should continue to keep a focus on cyber resilience through continuous monitoring."

SecurityScorecard continuously monitors and assesses the security posture of millions of entities globally across ten risk categories, including DNS health, IP reputation, network security, web application security, leaked information, hacker chatter, endpoint security, and patching cadence. This instantly provides an understandable "A" through "F" security rating.

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