The line between online piracy and the traditional seaborne variety may be blurring.

A new report by Verizon says pirates are believed to be hacking shipping companies' computer networks in order to target specific cargoes and vessels with pirate boardings.

The US telecom’s RISK Team cybersecurity division found that a global ship operator, which commissioned the investigation after a string of recent attacks, was the target of hackers who found an insecure doorway into the company’s homegrown content management system (CMS).