BV, BESSÉ team up to improve maritime cyber security

Certification and classification society Bureau Veritas (BV) and French insurance consultancy BESSÉ have formed a partnership to strengthen cyber security in the maritime sector.

Through combining BV and BESSÉ’s expertise, this partnership seeks to support shipowners with tailored solutions to improve their cyber security and cyber insurance.

It also aims to help shipping stakeholders manage the risk of cyber-attacks and comply with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) requirements.

In efforts to develop and implement an effective cyber security strategy, BV established a set of rules, NR 659, that make up a framework for assessing maritime cyber security.

As described, this framework enables BV to assess the level of cyber risk for shipowners and operators and to recommend organizational, technical and procedural measures to reduce this risk to an acceptable level. This process includes:

• conducting a complete inventory of equipment, systems and networks connected at sea and on land;
• conducting a cyber risk analysis to identify vulnerable systems and equipment;
• developing and implement a cyber risk management policy;
• ensuring the effective implementation of technical and organizational procedures;
• enabling shipowners/operators to ensure compliance with IMO cyber security requirements.
• validating the management of cyber risk on board through an additional Class Notation.

For its end, BESSÉ then responds to the identified risks through insurance solutions, by helping shipowners transfer part of the cyber risk to insurers. The consultancy builds on the results of the system’s optimization achieved through BV’s rules to assist its clients in presenting these risks to insurers.

Gildas Tual, director of BESSÉ Maritime and Logistique, said: “Managing cyber risk is still a new challenge for companies in general, and shipowners and operators in particular. This is why we are delighted to partner with Bureau Veritas to offer tailor-made solutions for our clients”.

“Thanks to our experience and expertise in maritime cyber security, which we deliver every day to our clients around the world, Bureau Veritas is now able to provide BESSÉ with parameters for assessing the cyber resilience of a ship or a fleet. This evidence-based picture provides the basis for the insurance industry to meet the new expectations of shipowners and operators”, commented Matthieu de Tugny, president of Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore.

The BV-BESSÉ partnership follows several initiatives in this field. Coming together under the Secretariat General de la Mer, several French stakeholders are providing a coordinated response to cyber attacks.

Working in parallel to IMO’s work on adapting regulation to help shipowners put appropriate protection measures in place, the Cyber Council of the Maritime World (C2M2) was created, of which BESSÉ and BV are members. Moreover, a France Cyber Maritime Association was created at the end of 2020.