Email is still the spine of maritime operations. Chartering instructions, spares orders, crew changes, port documentation, vendor payments to name a few. Most of it moves through inboxes, even as ships add new digital tools.

But the way shipping markets treat email risk is far from uniform. In my work across Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, the Gulf, and parts of Africa, I see a widening “email divide” that has little to do with awareness campaigns and everything to do with operational culture, local infrastructure, and whether companies treat support as a strategic capability or an afterthought.

The truth is simple: you can’t secure what you can’t support. And you can’t support what you don’t understand in the context of how ships actually operate.

In Greece and Cyprus, IT teams tend to be more mature and demanding. Many operators have strong internal capability, experienced shoreside teams, and higher expectations from vendors.

That’s the good news. The harder part is cultural, and it’s not a criticism, it’s a reality. Greeks are passionate. Everything is urgent. Decisions get made quickly, operations move fast, and there is limited patience for delays.

This urgency is not “bad culture.” It’s often what keeps ships moving. But it creates a friction point with email security, which typically depends on verification steps, formal…