Spy ships, cyber-attacks and shadow fleets: the crack security team braced for trouble at sea

As international tensions mount and hackers grow more sophisticated and audacious, the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre is constantly monitoring the global threat of war, terror and piracy

Ships being taken over remotely by hackers and made to crash is a scenario made in Hollywood. But in a security operations room in Oslo, just a few metres from the sparkling fjord and its tourist boats, floating saunas and plucky bathers, maritime cyber experts say not only is it technically possible, but they are poised for it to happen.

We are pretty sure that it will happen sooner or later, so that is what we are looking for," says Oystein Brekke-Sanderud, a senior analyst at the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre (Norma Cyber). On the wall behind him is a live map of the ships they monitor and screens full of graphs and code. Two little rubber ducks watch over proceedings from above.