In 2017, the Navy saw two deadly ship collisions at sea. First, the destroyer Fitzgerald collided with a container ship near Japan in June, and then again two months later the destroyer John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker near Singapore.
Both incidents were, per comprehensive Navy investigations, due to human error. The findings quieted speculation that a network-based attack could have disabled onboard navigation or other critical systems — but the report didn’t end discussion of the possibilities of such scenarios.
As a result, top Department of Defense leadership ordered new training and safety procedures throughout the Navy; meanwhile, internally, Navy officials called for the service’s key IT and cyber elements to routinely be part of incident investigations in the future.
Navy leaders say the decision to include cyber elements in the incident investigation is a sign of the service’s greater emphasis on stitching together operational domains.
The goal is to better equip naval forces to take on emerging threats and a changing threat landscape, regardless of location or specific mission.
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