Wärtsilä is partnering with the cyber security company Templar Executives to establish a cyber academy in Singapore. The academy will offer courses designed to support and enhance the collective cyber maturity of the wider shipping community, notably operators and owners.
“We believe this is a first for the maritime industry; a center of excellence including a cyber academy, combining threat intelligence and cyber education designed to support collaboration for our customers and the wider maritime community,” said Marco Ryan, Chief Digital Officer at Wärtsilä.
The cyber academy’s courses will cover a range of relevant topics, from cyber security coaching for senior management to cyber awareness for all organizational levels within the maritime industry. The academy, which is located in the Wärtsilä Digital Acceleration Center in Singapore, will become operational from May 1, 2018 and initially courses will be delivered in Singapore and London.
“Cybercrime damages are predicted to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to research from Cybersecurity Ventures,” said Andrew Fitzmaurice, CEO at Templar Executives. “The NotPetya attack last year put the maritime industry firmly on the radar, highlighting the need for a paradigm shift in response to the escalating cyber threats. Our ground-breaking initiative with Wärtsilä aims at creating the first ever maritime cyber emergency response team to support the industry on a global scale.”
In delivering this initiative, Wärtsilä and Templar Executives will be actively contributing to sustainable cyber security solutions across the maritime environment. This includes building a cyber security reporting portal for the sharing of threat intelligence, as well as operational and resourcing expertise to jointly develop Cyber as a Service options. The partners will also work together with key stakeholders, including the Singapore government and CSO Alliance (Company Security Officers).
“We are excited to collaborate with Templar Executives in offering the maritime industry a totally new initiative. Templar Executives has a proven track record in delivering discreet and valued solutions that improve cyber resilience and maturity to global markets, which is why we have chosen them as our strategic cyber security partner,” said Mark Milford, Vice President, Cyber Security at Wärtsilä.
The academy partnership was formalized with a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Marco Ryan and Andrew Fitzmaurice on April 23 in Helsinki.