In the 21st Century,
You Will Not Find Capt. Jack Sparrow Anywhere, Now the Pirates Are Using High
Tech to Make the Loot
 |
| Cargo Ship |
This
incident is the first of its kind as the very cunning yet tech-savvy pirates
hacked into the computer systems of a shipping company and with extreme
caution, they targeted cargo ships
of the company. The team at Verizon RISK (Research, Investigations, Solutions
and Knowledge) released a report revealing that a global shipping corporation
has fallen victim to some high-tech pirates. Verizon cyber specialists have
been contacted by an unnamed company reporting that the pirates have adopted a
new strategy to loot their ships.
The
cargo vessels are usually rummaged by the pirates when they are on their way to
deliver sea cargo
to Caribbean, China, UK., US.,
or other countries of the world. Verizon RISK stated that “rather than spending
days holding boats and their crew hostage while they rummaged through the
cargo, these pirates began to attack shipping vessels in an extremely targeted
and timely fashion. Specifically, they would board a shipping vessel, force the
crew into one area and within a short amount of time they would depart.”
 |
| Pirates |
It
is further explained in the report that when the crew members left their safe
rooms hours later, they were surprised to learn that the pirates haven’t
randomly looted the cargo, rather, they had targeted certain cargo containers.
“It became apparent to the shipping company that the pirates had specific
knowledge of the contents of each of the shipping crates being moved. They’d boarded a vessel, located by bar code
specific sought-after crates containing valuables, steal the contents of that
crate – and that crate only – and then depart the vessel without further
incident.”
When
the Verizon RISK team came to know of the incident, they went to the company to
inspect their systems. It was found that the firm was using a home-grown
Content Management System (CMS) to manage the documents required for shipping
freight and shipping inventory. When the team thoroughly inspected the network
traffic surrounding the CMS managing shipping routes, they found a malicious
web shell being uploaded onto the server which was giving them all the
information.
 |
| Hacker |
This
enabled the pirates to pull down all those documents that had the details about
future shipments, crates with specific valuables and the schedule for the
vessels to carry them. The details of this incident have not been disclosed but
there are chances that it might have happened somewhere near African east
coast. CargotoCaribbean.co.uk offers sea cargo services at affordable prices from UK to all destinations of
Caribbean including Antiqua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Gyana,
Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
etc.
