Hello! I completed my master's degree in cybersecurity at Tallinn University of Technology and University of Tartu. I am a research assistant in maritime cybersecurity at the MariCybERA research group, focusing on fully autonomous ships. I started a two-year maritime adventure after completing my bachelor's degree in Maritime Transportation and Management at Istanbul Technical University, one of Turkey's prestigious institutions. I worked as a deck cadet and third officer in international waters for two years. As a result, I am familiar with all the ship's onboard bridge IT, and OT equipment and have experience in this field.

During one of our voyage on autopilot in South Atlantic Ocean, frequent navigation equipment failures led me to wonder what would happen to these devices in the face of cybersecurity threats. This idea pushed me to study cybersecurity in Estonia, one of Europe's most advanced IT countries. Since starting my master's degree in September 2022, I have continuously progressed in cybersecurity in general and focus on maritime security in particular. The interdisciplinary curriculum offered at TalTech has been a great opportunity for new cybersecurity interested students. Many courses have been a great opportunity for those new to cybersecurity and those with prior knowledge. For this reason, I chased opportunities to demonstrate my knowledge to start maritime cybersecurity research. I actively participated in the MariCybERA research group at TalTech as a research assistant, which is open-minded and supportive of graduate and undergraduate students. Our weekly meetings and presentations moved us forward as an interdisciplinary group of academics and provided me with invaluable research experience. After conducting detailed literature reviews, I combined my maritime background with my newly acquired cybersecurity experiences and started incorporating them into my research.

Shortly after starting, I had the opportunity to experience workshops and listen to presentations at IT and cybersecurity events organized in Tallinn, such as the annual BSIDES Tallinn events in 2022 and 2023. In March 2023, I participated as part of the White Team in the world's largest cyber defense exercise, Locked Shields 2023, gaining experiences like simulating Red Team attacks, communicating with the Blue Team, creating realistic scenarios, and helping identify potential network vulnerabilities.

After these experiences, I presented my first research on "Threat Modeling to Autonomous Ship OT Systems" at the Cyber-SHIP Lab Annual Symposium organized by Plymouth Universities at the International Maritime Organization in London in October 2023. Following this, the development of autonomous ships and the increase in AI works led me to focus on the AI decision-making processes in autonomous systems, developing my skills in this area. With the research I conducted, I attend as a speaker at OWASP Tallinn's "Cybersecurity & AI - Vol. 1" event in December 2023, where I presented my research on "Adversarial Attacks on Autonomous Ship Systems."