The brokers of the DGSI – the French inner safety company – come on board and discover an digital gadget (maybe a USB key, maybe a tough disk) which, in line with the accusations formalized on Monday 15 December by the Paris prosecutor’s workplace, contained RAT (Remote Access Trojan) kind malware, theoretically able to taking management of the ship and piloting it remotely. After the preliminary investigations, the investigators launched the Bulgarian citizen and formalized the fees towards the Latvian: “criminal conspiracy to pursue the interests of a foreign power”, “attempted intrusion into computer systems” and “unmotivated possession of devices designed to interfere with automatic navigation systems”, as said within the paperwork.
«Taking distant management of a ship is likely one of the situations most feared by operators within the maritime sector – Christian Cévaër, director of France Cyber Maritime, an affiliation specialised in combating cyber threats to navigation, instructed AFP – as a result of it may possibly result in doubtlessly very severe bodily penalties, comparable to steering the ship towards a goal. There may additionally be a want to create destabilization at a political stage and robust financial impacts.”
While the investigations continue in France, Italy and Latvia – with the support of Eurojust – the defense of the arrested twenty-year-old Latvian is trying to tone down the tone: “The thesis of Russian interference appears exaggerated to me – declared the lawyer Thibault Bailly – and the investigation will permit us to exhibit that this matter just isn’t as disturbing because it appears in the mean time”.
But the theoretical hypothesis of a leap in quality of hybrid threats, with the possibility of remotely controlling civilian and military ships and hurling them against sensitive targets or taking them hostage, has already been included in the European defense dossiers for some time, and the Fantastic affair can serve to take stock of the situation.
Where is Italy at?
«Last week we took management of a frigate of the Italian Navy: we blocked the rudders, took management of the engines, made all of the telephones ring, flooded the bridges and took management of the fight system»: what was instructed to Il Sole 24Ore just isn’t – luckily – a hacker within the pay of a international energy or the exponent of a terrorist group, however Carlo Festuccipresident of DEAS Cyber+, an Italian firm based in 2018 by entrepreneur Stefania Ranzato, which right now has 150 staff, over 25 million in turnover and collaborates with the Ministry of Defense to safe military programs. Festucci tells about Chirolexan train that lately occurred off the coast of Sardinia, through which DEAS Cyber+ performed the position of the hostile entity to check the Navy’s response capabilities on a ship outfitted with one of the crucial technological management doorways out there in the mean time.
https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/attacco-hacker-nave-gnv-fermato-italia-secondo-marinaio-l-esperto-prepararsi-qualsiasi-scenario-AIpWLdS