IACS Enhances Its Cyber Safety Unified Requirements

The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) has enhanced it cyber safety unified requirements (URs) to reflect new survey requirements, industry feedback and applicability.

To address the need to enhance the cyber resilience of ships, last year IACS published UR E26 “Cyber Resilience of Ships”, and UR E27, “Cyber Resilience of On-Board Systems and Equipment”, which applied to new ships from January 1, 2024.

Since the publication of these requirements, and as experience of cyber security oversight in the maritime sector grows, the need for a standardized approach to survey requirements has been identified along with further enhancements resulting from industry feedback.

Additionally, and to address the challenges regarding the implementation of new cyber requirements in smaller and non-conventional vessels, the scope of applicability of these URs have been categorised as mandatory and non-mandatory compliance depending on vessel types and sizes.

These improvements have resulted in extensive changes to the two URs, so they will now supersede the originals and will be applied to new ships contracted for construction on and after July 1, 2024.  

To avoid confusion, the original versions, along with their previous application date of January 1, 2024, have been withdrawn. The revised version of URE27 is available on the IACS website. The revised version of URE26 is still being finalized and will be published before the end of the year.