Denial of Service (DoS) Attack

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack floods a system or network with traffic or malformed requests until legitimate users lose access; a distributed variant (DDoS) launches it from many compromised hosts at once. Against shipping it can knock out port community systems, terminal operating systems, vessel-tracking portals, or a ship’s satellite-communication management interface, stalling cargo flow and shore coordination. The threat is one reason IMO Resolution MSC.428(98) requires availability of critical systems to be addressed in the safety management system, and why operators keep manual fallback procedures for bridge and cargo operations.