According to a recent Verizon report, pirates are now utilizing sophisticated cyber tactics to assist in their naval marauding ventures. The typical day in the life of a naval pirate consists of targeting a vessel spotted at sea, taking its crew hostage, and holding them for ransom until the ship’s valuable cargo has been rifled through and plundered.
However, some pirates have conspired to make the job quite a bit easier: Their new strategy consists of cyber hacking into a shipping line’s servers and pulling out information about sailing times, locations, and cargo manifests. The pirates then gear up to intercept a shipping vessel at a predetermined location, cordon off the boat’s crew to a specific area onboard, quickly gather up the specific goods they had selected prior to boarding, and depart the ship in pursuit of their next target.
