GTMaritime has seen exceptional growth in the use of its secure, maritime optimised email software and other cyber-security solutions as vessel owners and operators step up a gear to harden onboard networks and protect their ships from digital threats. Many have been spurred into action by IMO’s decision to bring cyber-security under the remit of the ISM code from 2022.

Some 5,677 vessels are now employing solutions from GTMaritime’s portfolio – an increase of more than one-third over the past year. Put another way, nearly one in ten vessels in the global merchant fleet are using GTMaritime technology to safeguard onboard systems from malicious code.

Notably, the deployment of the made-for-maritime anti-virus solution GTSentinel has jumped 23% since September 2018, with nearly 1,500 vessels now subscribing. Standard antivirus protection software can underperform at sea due to patchy connectivity and bandwidth constraints, often leaving vessels and businesses at risk.

GTSentinel was developed specifically by GTMaritime to overcome these failure points. It allows fleet IT managers to schedule the distribution of anti-virus updates on a live, daily or weekly basis. Updates need only be sent once to each vessel and then propagated to all onboard devices thanks to a unique serverless peer-to-peer distribution mechanism. The ‘buddy system’ minimises the impact of updates on the ship’s communications infrastructure and lets fleet managers strike a balance between airtime costs and updating anti-virus software.

When coupled with GTMaritime’s advanced email solution, GTMailPlus, GTSentinel ensures vessels are equipped with the highest level of protection against ransomware, spam, viruses and malware.

In the last six months, GTMaritime services have stopped more than 59,500 malware attacks which were unknown to standard antivirus services and halted more than 68,000 known viruses in their tracks. They have also prevented more than 200,000 spam messages clogging up onboard inboxes.

Mike McNally, who joined GTMaritime last year as Sales & Marketing Director, has now taken on the role of Global Commercial Director, responsible for all sales, marketing, technical sales support and sales operations. He said: “As the leading independent provider of maritime email we feel a responsibility to continuously enhance the cyber security aspect of our solutions. We have made hundreds of updates and enhancements this year and will continue to do our best to keep ahead of the threat profiles.”

GTMaritime continues to respond to rising demand for its security solutions, McNally added. Over the past year, it has added nine new resellers across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, he said.