A Free List of Security Holes in Ship Equipment, in the Week a Gang Named 38 Maritime Firms

Last week AI found two old holes in web software that runs most websites. We asked how a ship manager would even know which of their equipment is affected. This week there is a free tool for that question.

The list. The cyber security company Cydome, with ClassNK, Bureau Veritas, MTS-ISAC (a group where shipping companies share cyber warnings) and Rakuten Maritime, has opened the Maritime Vulnerabilities Repository. It is a free public list of known security holes in IT and control equipment used on ships. You can search it by equipment and maker, read short expert notes on some entries, and get an alert when something new appears for your equipment. More than 350,000 security holes have been published in total, with about 200 new ones a day, so finding the few that matter for your fleet is the hard part.

The same week. On 12 October a criminal group listed 38 maritime, shipping, port and logistics companies on its leak site and claimed to have their data. The satellite and IT company Marlink looked into it. It could not confirm that the data is real, and found no proof that ship systems or port operations were hit. Marlink's advice to everyone: check remote access given to suppliers, check file transfers, call your partners, confirm any change to payment or cargo release instructions by phone to a known number, and keep your logs.

What is missing. Cydome sells cyber security, and the article does not say who checks the list long term or how it is paid for.

What to do this week. Make a list of the main equipment on one ship, with maker and software version. Search it in the free list. If the list is too long to make, that is the first finding. [Smart Maritime Network · Digital Ship · AiatSea, 25 October]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 1 November 2026.