Bertold Van den Bergh

Bertold Van den Bergh is CTO at MAHI, a Belgian leader in autonomous maritime navigation. With over a decade of experience in high-tech hardware, he holds a PhD in secure UAV communication and an MSc in electrical engineering. As a security researcher, he has published several papers on cyber resilience. Before co-founding MAHI, Van den Bergh worked on medical wearables at Byteflies and satellite modems at ST Engineering. He played a vital role in Project MAHI, enabling the first autonomous Atlantic crossing powered solely by solar energy, overseeing the development of the embedded and cloud control systems.

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Presentation

Navigating autonomous vessels through security challenges

Cyber threats and electronic interference can sink projects before they even set sail. What are the key cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, and how can they be mitigated? The presentation offers three real-world cases where Mahi detected, resolved and reported security flaws in communication devices and navigation sensors. These findings highlight the critical need for secure-by-design navigation systems to ensure continuous and reliable operations in uncrewed and lean-crewed vessels. The Baltic Sea jamming crisis and rising geopolitical tensions reveal further vulnerabilities in autonomous systems. The presentation outlines mitigation strategies to counter jamming-induced paralysis, spoofing-driven navigation errors and direct cyber intrusions.