Cyber-SHIP Lab

Cyber-SHIP Lab is a unique, hardware-based maritime cyber security research and development platform; a fully configurable physical twin for any ship’s bridge and operational technology systems of systems. * £3.2 million hardware-based, fully configurable maritime IT&OT cyber security research platform * Individual ships’ bridges, or system-of-systems’ cyber resilience evaluation across all ship classes * Actionable research outputs: knowledge tools and training addressing maritime cyber security issues from hardware to software to people Part of the University of Plymouth Maritime Cyber Threat Research Group, Cyber-SHIP Lab currently evaluates ships’ physical IT&OT systems, and systems-of-systems across all ship classes. The vessels, infrastructure and people that facilitate international maritime supply chains, on which 90-plus percent of the world trade and economic security depends, rely on an unusually disparate, sometimes dated, and increasingly autonomous collection of information and operational technology (IT&OT). Cyber-SHIP Lab’s research is focused on building cyber threat resilience in this uniquely complex, valuable and vulnerable sector. Anywhere there is IT&OT and people, there are cyber security vulnerabilities. This, of course, includes ship and port systems and the humans that operate or supervise them. In partnership with industry, government and NGOs, Cyber-SHIP Lab’s researchers analyse and address cyber security at the hardware, software, and human levels to identify, understand and mitigate threats. We publish actionable research and develop practical tools and training. In the medium-term, Cyber-SHIP Lab’s research objectives will move on to include cyber threats around ship/port interactions, autonomous vessels and port systems, and enabling secure-by-design maritime systems across the supply chain. We anticipate this work will have wider application into offshore operations and transport infrastructure.