The YCM’s La Belle Classe Academy is offering online training courses to help in the battle against cyberattacks being carried out on superyachts.
La Belle Classe Academy is helping yacht owners and their crews stop cyberattacks on their vessels through a new two-course programme at the Yacht Club of Monaco’s (YCM) training centre. The course is being run by engineer and partner at Xperys, Alexandre Bayeux, and teaches crew how to “arm themselves with essentials on how to manage cybersecurity and protect their yacht.”
Since the start of 2021, cybersecurity has fallen under the jurisdiction of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code. This means that cyber risks must be incorporated in general safety management systems on all vessels.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has published its own ‘Guidelines on Maritime Cyber Management Risk’ giving recommendations aimed at protecting vessels from the latest cyber threats. To anticipate the dangers and protect the yacht from risks, it is important for crew to be able to understand, identify, analyse and evaluate them.
As 95% of cybersecurity breaches come down to human error, it is imperative that the solutions are accessible to all, not just the tech savvy. Participants, therefore, are not required to have computer or cybersecurity skills. They will be schooled in three main areas: technology, the human factor, and organisation.
The three-pronged approach will help those taking the course to understand and put into practice the new IMO regulations through case studies that will give examples of loopholes and weaknesses that cybercriminals can exploit and show crew members how to be efficient first-lines of defence.
“The idea is to give them the keys to detect flaws or a hacking attack in preparation. There are no miracles, but very regularly leaks or hacks are quite crude and you need to know how to listen and identify them,” says Alexandre Bayeux.
The session will also be an opportunity to work on how to behave in the event of suspected or proven attacks. “A well prepared criminal will exploit surprise, fear and hasty reactions to increase the victim’s vulnerability,” the course’s instructor goes on to say.
The first course, called ‘Cybersecurity essentials for a yacht, will be held on 25^th March in French and 1^st April in English.  The second course, ‘How to manage the crew and suppliers: first line of cyber-defence on a yacht’ is in English only and will be held on 15^th April. Each class lasts three hours and costs €150.
 
Photo by Jefferson Santos on Unsplash