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From Click to Sink: Utilizing AIS for Command and Control in Maritime Cyber Attacks

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Computer Security – ESORICS 2022 (ESORICS 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13556))

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Abstract

The maritime domain is among the critical sectors of our way of life. It is undergoing a major digital transformation introducing changes to its operations and technology. The International Maritime Organization urged the maritime community to introduce cyber risk management into their systems. This includes the continuous identification and analysis of the threat landscape. This paper investigates a novel threat against the maritime infrastructure that utilizes a prominent maritime system that is the Automatic Identification System (AIS) for establishing covert channels. We provide empirical evidence regarding its feasibility and applicability to existing and future maritime systems as well as discuss mitigation measures against it. Additionally, we demonstrate the utility of the covert channels by introducing two realistic cyber attacks against an Autonomous Passenger Ship (APS) emulated in a testing environment. Our findings confirm that AIS can be utilized for establishing covert channels for communicating Command & Control (C &C) messages and transferring small files for updating the cyber arsenal without internet access. Also, the establishment and utilization of the covert channels have been found to be possible using existing attack vectors and technologies related to a wide range of maritime systems. We hope that our findings further motivate the maritime community to increase their efforts for integrating cyber security practices into their systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik, Norway

    Ahmed Amro & Vasileios Gkioulos

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  1. Ahmed Amro
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  2. Vasileios Gkioulos
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Correspondence to Ahmed Amro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

    Vijayalakshmi Atluri

  2. Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar

    Roberto Di Pietro

  3. Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Christian D. Jensen

  4. Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Weizhi Meng

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Amro, A., Gkioulos, V. (2022). From Click to Sink: Utilizing AIS for Command and Control in Maritime Cyber Attacks. In: Atluri, V., Di Pietro, R., Jensen, C.D., Meng, W. (eds) Computer Security – ESORICS 2022. ESORICS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17143-7_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17143-7_26

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