A Bibliometric Analysis of Maritime Cybersecurity: Trends, Themes, and Collaboration Patterns

The rapid development and increasing strategic importance of the maritime cyber security field, particularly over the last decade, form the starting point of this study. The aim of this study is to present the current status of the field with objective data. For this purpose, 607 records indexed under the keywords "Cyber Security" and "Maritime" in the Web of Science Core Collection were examined. Data were collected in the "Full Record and Cited References" format, and descriptive statistics and VOSviewer-based network analysis were applied together. The findings indicate a significant increase in publications after 2016; the acceleration of citation accumulation between 2019 and 2023 signals the field's transition to a mature phase. While the collaboration structure is concentrated around China and the US, it is supported by a strong cluster in Europe. Turkey's visibility is increasing, but there is room for development in terms of network depth. Four themes emerge in the keyword co-occurrence network: navigation and ship systems security (AIS/ECDIS, GNSS spoofing), maritime IoT and communication networks (ICS/SCADA, satcom), machine and deep learning-based anomaly detection, and risk, resilience, and governance. The study's contribution is its systematic mapping of the field within an interdisciplinary framework, jointly assessing country, institutional, and conceptual networks within the context of funding, publishing ecosystems, and citation dynamics. This assessment concretizes research priorities and emphasizes zero-trust principles with multilayered defenses in practice. The results point to a research agenda based on international data and testbed collaborations, providing a practical roadmap for policy and practice.