The China-made 13,000 TEU dual-fuel container vessel Jiacheng, built by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) Limited, was delivered three months ahead of schedule with high quality. It is the first vessel worldwide to pass the Assessment of Cyber Security for New Ships and Ship Systems by Lloyd’s Register (LR).
Through this project, Hudong-Zhonghua has established a standardized implementation system for shipboard cyber safety, providing high-quality, replicable solutions for the global shipbuilding industry to meet the requirements for relevant cyber security assessment.
The China-made dual-fuel container vessel Jiacheng was built by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) Limited. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
Nowadays, the inner systems of ships are more interconnected as engineers work for more intelligent and digitalized shipping. Maritime cyber risks to these vessels also abound.
To mitigate potential danger, the International Association of Classification Societies adopted two compulsory shipborne internet security regulations: UR E26 “Cyber Resilience of Ships” and UR E27 “Cyber Resilience of On-Board Systems and Equipment”.
While the two requirements were applied to newbuilds from July 2024, shipyards face mounting uncertainty due to a scarcity of proven implementation cases, divergent interpretations of the standards, and the absence of integrated whole-vessel protection solutions.
As part of this push, engineers at Hudong-Zhonghua formed a dedicated task force and planned ahead with an industry-wide joint tackling model, breaking new ground as the first in the industry to secure compliance with the new rules. With a focus on full-domain shipborne cyber security, they adopted a defense-in-depth approach as the top-level design to build a zoned boundary protection system tailored for large container vessels.
By implementing both “physical isolation” and “logical isolation” as dual safeguards, the project team precisely separated operational technology systems from information technology systems and deployed professional firewalls at network boundaries. This enables cross-zone traffic control, tiered access constraints, and malicious traffic interception, erecting a robust digital security barrier right from the ship’s design phase.
By delivering this mega-container vessel, Hudong-Zhonghua has established a standardized shipboard cyber security implementation system, providing high-quality, replicable solutions for the global shipbuilding industry.
