Connected vessels, shared responsibility: An exclusive interview with Ioannis Rizos, Head of ICT Infrastructure, Dynagas

Greater connectivity has transformed daily life at sea. Crew can make video calls home, vessels can receive remote technical support, and operators have far greater visibility of fleet operations than they had only a few years ago. However, for Ioannis Rizos, Head of ICT Infrastructure at Dynagas, those gains have not changed the fundamentals of cyber resilience. They have simply changed where companies need to look.

Drawing on experience across ship ownership, automation and information technology, Mr. Rizos believes the industry’s biggest challenge is no longer treating cyber security as an IT problem. Real resilience comes from strategy, people, trusted partners and practical safeguards that keep vessels operating when something goes wrong.

Cyber security is no longer an IT function operating in isolation. It is an operational business function that influences safety, compliance, commercial continuity and crew welfare. Successful organisations treat cyber resilience as a shared responsibility across every department, from senior management to crews, technical teams, vendors and external partners.

Maritime cyber resilience landscape

According to Mr. Rizos, maritime has travelled a long way from the days when ships were viewed as isolated assets beyond the reach of cyber threats.

“I think that the industry is making significant progress in general,” he said. “The maritime industry considered itself secure enough because the vessels are isolated infrastructure and we felt falsely safe.”

That perception has changed. He stressed that cyber incidents go far beyond malware or network intrusions.

“A cyber security incident could be some false impersonation,” he explained, describing a case where someone convinces a master to hand over money through deception. “This is a classic social engineering attack.”

Training and documented procedures have helped the industry respond quickly because shipping already operates within a structured regulatory environment. Still, Mr. Rizos believes another challenge has emerged as vessels adopt more remote services.

“The risk now has transferred from random attacks to the supply chain,” he said.

Modern vessels rely on remote support from equipment manufacturers and software suppliers. If one of those partners suffers a compromise, the shipowner has little control over the consequences.

“If the vendors don’t invest in security measures themselves, then they provide the security risk for our company. That is something that we cannot easily mitigate because it’s not something we can control.”

He welcomed the introduction of IACS Unified Requirements UR E26 and UR E27 for newbuildings but argued that existing vessels also need stronger protection through wider regulatory action.

Mr. Rizos also rejected the idea that shipowners simply hand responsibility to technology suppliers. Instead, he argued that companies should establish their own cyber strategy before selecting external partners.

“Having a strong security knowledge base within the IT department of the company provides a very good starting point,” he said. “The strategy is coming from our department.”

Connectivity and cyber risk evolution

Despite rapid improvements in maritime connectivity, Mr. Rizos does not believe faster internet automatically creates greater cyber risk.

“We’re getting higher speeds, and we can provide better services, especially to the crew on board,” he said, pointing to video calls with families as one of the biggest improvements.

For now, he views services such as Starlink as secure platforms. Future services, including Amazon Kuiper, also appear promising, although he added a note of caution.

“What will end up happening? Anyone’s guessing.”

Instead, one misconception continues to concern him more than bandwidth.

“The most common misconception was that the vessel is an isolated entity which is secure because it’s at sea.”

Recent incidents involving GPS spoofing, ECDIS manipulation and AIS interference have shown that ships remain exposed. Mr. Rizos recalled one incident from an earlier role where a sealed USB flash drive, given to a master as a gift, carried malicious software.

“It was an honest mistake,” he said, “but still it can happen on board.”

Building resilience therefore starts with practical measures rather than expensive technology alone. Mr. Rizos recommends endpoint detection and response systems, trusted communications providers, enterprise-grade firewalls and comprehensive backups for critical systems.

“One of the most important things in cyber risk is business continuity,” he said. “The business is the vessel, so the vessel needs to continue.”

He also favours consolidating cyber tools with fewer suppliers, giving IT teams a single interface instead of monitoring multiple platforms.

Mr. Rizos expects shipping companies to invest more in specialist cyber expertise alongside software and platforms.

“I think in five years each company, each IT department, will need to have at least one cyber security expert within the department.”

He also expects artificial intelligence to assist defensive operations by filtering vast quantities of security data and helping teams prioritise genuine threats.

The Digital Ship Summit 2026

For Mr. Rizos, industry events remain one of the best ways to stay informed.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what new developments have been done in our field,” he said. “If you stay uninformed, then you stay behind. We need to know the threats that are out there, and we need to know how to deal with the threats.”

Mr. Rizos said much of his knowledge comes through collaboration with fellow IT professionals across the maritime sector. He serves on the board of AMMITEC, the Association of Maritime Managers in Information Technology and Communications, where members regularly exchange information on emerging threats, new platforms and practical experiences from their own fleets.

“We inform each other of developments, of threats, of platforms, of new services,” he said. “We try to keep our colleagues, all colleagues, informed. So we are all better at our jobs.”

He also values relationships built over many years with technology suppliers and industry contacts. Those conversations often provide practical insight long before formal guidance is published.

“I strongly believe in the intercommunication between people because platforms and the Internet are very good, but people are better,” he said. “Sometimes a vendor has feedback because they have a much larger statistical group to take information from.”

Those relationships also work both ways. Trusted contacts are quick to alert one another when a serious issue emerges.

“Even if I don’t call them, because we have a good relationship with these people, if there is a critical issue, they may call me and say, ‘John, heads up, there is this issue in the industry. Now be prepared, be careful so it doesn’t happen to you.’”

Alongside cyber resilience, Mr. Rizos hopes the Digital Ship Summit will also explore technologies that improve life at sea. With Starlink now installed across all Dynagas vessels, he would like to see further developments in crew welfare and onboard connectivity.

“It is easy to forget that all of these things are being run on board by people,” he said. 

His father served as a chief engineer during a time when seafarers could call home only once a week because communications were costly. Today’s connectivity has transformed that experience, but Mr. Rizos believes there is still room for further progress.

“I would like to see what the industry has to offer to alleviate the pressure of being on board and in the “office” continuously.”

source : thedigitalship