Mapping Maritime Threats with Windward’s Organization Defined Risk

Why Threat Mapping Matters

For intelligence and security organizations, mapping the full spectrum of strategic threats is a core process that defines operational priorities, guides resource allocation, and shapes how agencies respond to complex challenges. Whether conducted annually or triggered by emerging events, these evaluations create a shared picture of what matters most and ensure agencies can act with focus and confidence. 

These priorities are never static. In recent years, risks once considered secondary – like critical infrastructure protection – have rapidly moved to the top of national security agendas. Shifts can be driven both by external development and by political directives from leadership. A new administration may, for instance, choose to prioritize issues like legal immigration, cyber threats, or narcotics over others, instantly reshaping the hierarchy of threats. As geopolitical tensions rise and illicit networks adapt, the risk landscape is constantly evolving. Technology adoption is now central to anticipating, mitigating, and navigating these risks effectively and proactively. This is exactly where Windward delivers value, by turning evolving risks into customized, actionable intelligence. 

Adapting Risk Models to Your Mission with Windward

Windward’s risk structure provides a robust, AI-driven framework for assessing and scoring maritime risks. It combines multiple layers, from raw AIS data and detected activities, through model-based indicators and risk types, to a final vessel risk level. This foundation enables comprehensive, fact-based risk assessments that are both transparent and repeatable.

But risk is never one-size-fits-all. Every organization has a different mandate, set of priorities, and evolving challenges. What matters most to a border security agent may differ from what matters to a Navy, a coast guard, or a financial regulator, and those needs will shift as the threat landscape changes. 

That’s why Windward created Organization Defined Risk (ODR), a capability that lets agencies customize the platform’s risk structure to their unique operational reality. With Organization Defined Risk, organizations can:

• Align our AI-driven risk models with their own strategic priorities.
• Define custom indicators for emerging risks.
• Layer contextual intelligence onto existing vessel and activity assessments.
• Continuously update definitions as new threats emerge or methodologies shift.

The result is a shared, dynamic picture of maritime risk – one that combines Windward’s deep intelligence with your agency’s mission-specific focus.

Windward’s risk structure layers AIS data, detected activities, and model-based indicators into a clear vessel risk level, giving agencies a structured view of maritime risks.

Windward’s configurable risk structure provides a clear path for turning complex maritime risks into actionable intelligence. The following steps outline how organizations can translate strategic priorities into clear, operational risks that drive faster, more informed decisions.

Step 1: Defining & Prioritizing Strategic Threats (‘Threat Mapping’)

The first step in building Organization Defined Risks (ODRs) is the policy and intelligence-led process of threat mapping – the process for defining and prioritizing the risks your organization faces. Before technology can deliver value, agencies need clarity on which threats matter most, how they rank in urgency, and where resources should be directed.  

Threat mapping brings together senior decision-makers, security professionals, and subject-matter experts to align on priorities that will guide every subsequent stage of risk definition and operational planning.

This process typically involves:

• Conduct internal consultations across policy, intelligence, operations, and analysis teams.
• Review recent threat intelligence, geopolitical developments, and operational lessons learned.
• Consider evolving risk, including emerging areas that may not have been prioritized before.
• Assign each threat to a tier, from highest to lowest (but still relevant).

Here’s an example of such a prioritization:

With a clear hierarchy of threats in place, agencies can now move from defining what matters most to breaking those priorities into concrete vessel populations.

Step 2: Translating Priorities into Vessel Populations & Indicators

Once strategic priorities are set, the next step is to translate those broad categories into concrete, operational definitions. This means turning high-level concerns, such as human trafficking, into a set of measurable vessel populations and risk indicators that can be monitored in practice.

This stage is guided by two essential questions:

1. Who are we looking for? Which vessel populations are relevant to this threat?
2. What signals are we looking for? Which measurable indicators, like behaviors or patterns, could suggest a risk in progress?

To answer these questions, agencies combine intelligence, domain expertise, and maritime data by:

• Leveraging existing intelligence holdings (classified and open-source) to define likely actors.
• Apply domain and geopolitical expertise to refine vessel criteria and account for adversary capabilities.
• Use historical maritime data to validate assumptions and refine criteria.
• Incorporate geographic nuance, as vessels that matter in one region may not be relevant in another.

For instance, consider an intelligence agency assessing threats posed by drug smuggling. They may find that risks disproportionately involve vessels with Chinese affiliation. Relevant vessel populations could include those with one or more of the following:

• Chinese flag
• Chinese ownership
• Port calls in China within the past 12 months

This is just one example, but it illustrates how a broad priority quickly narrows into a set of identifiable vessel populations. In practice, agencies will continue to refine and expand these lists as intelligence evolves. With clear vessel groups and indicators established, the foundation is set for the next stage – defining the suspicious behaviors that turn these vessels from “of interest” into operational risks.

Step 3: Defining Suspicious Behaviors

Identifying vessel populations alone isn’t enough. Without behavioral context, the net can be cast too wide, creating false positives and wasted effort. To transform a list of “vessels of interest” into actionable intelligence, organizations need to define the behaviors that signal real risk.

This step asks: what are these vessels doing, and does it align with known or suspected hostile tactics?

Agencies bridge intelligence with data by:

• Studying past incidents and adversary tactics to identify repeatable behavioral patterns.
• Mapping tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) into observable maritime behaviors visible through AIS and other sensors.
• Factoring in time and geography, since what counts as suspicious in one region or season may be normal in another (such as seasonal fishing closures, offshore construction schedules, naval exercises).

Continuing the example above:
The following could be flagged as high risk behaviors:

• Prolonged slow-speed sailing or loitering (e.g., >1 hour) outside territorial waters.
• Dark activity (AIS gaps) in the vicinity of ports or known drop-off sites.
• Ship-to-ship meetings with high/moderate risk vessels.
• Unexplained route deviations or first-time visits in territorial waters.

By layering these behavioral signals onto defined vessel groups, agencies sharpen their detection filter. This ensures alerts highlight vessels whose actions match hostile methodologies, not just any vessel with a risky affiliation. With both vessel populations and behaviors in place, the stage is set to combine them into scenarios that reflect real-world threat models.

Step 4: Building Scenario-Based Risk Frameworks

With vessel populations and suspicious behaviors defined, the next step is to connect the dots. This is where broad intelligence priorities become concrete, scenario-based frameworks that agencies can monitor and act on. 

A scenario is built by combining who (the vessel population) with what (the behaviors of concern).  Some combinations may warrant immediate operational action, while others may simply justify monitoring or flagging. The key is to assign the right level of urgency – high, medium, and indication – so resources are directed to where they matter most.

To build these scenarios, agencies typically:

• Create a matrix of possible combinations between defined vessel groups and relevant behaviors.
• Assess the operational impact of each combination using threat intelligence, domain expertise, and historical precedent.
• Assign a risk level – high, medium, or indication – to each scenario based on urgency, likelihood, and potential impact.
• Configure these scenarios directly inside Windward’s Organization-Defined Risk framework, ensuring alerts trigger in real time.

Continuing with the example, relevant vessel populations might include:

• Any vessel with a Chinese affiliation.
• Any vessel with a Chinese affiliation and high/moderate smuggling risk.

Paired with the behavior of prolonged slow-speed sailing just outside territorial waters, two scenarios emerge:

• Scenario 1: Chinese-affiliated vessel + slow-speed outside EEZ → medium risk.
• Scenario 2: Chinese-affiliated high/medium risk vessel + slow-speed in EEZ → high risk.

Both scenarios point to similar activities, but the second represents a greater likelihood of smuggling and therefore warrants a higher risk level.

By mixing and matching vessel groups, behaviors, and assigned risk levels, agencies can build precise, actionable ODRs. This ensures that each defined threat is operationalized in a way that matches its real-world urgency, reducing noise, focusing analyst attention, and aligning technology alerts with policy priorities. 

With scenarios clearly mapped, the final step is to bring them to life inside Windward’s platform through Organization Defined Risks (ODRs).

Step 5: Creating Organization-Defined Risks (ODRs) in the Windward Platform

Scenarios only deliver value once they’re operationalized. Our final step turns the work of defining priorities, vessel populations, behaviors, and scenarios into an active detection framework within the Windward platform. 

ODR ensures that every time a vessel meets your defined criteria, the system automatically assigns the correct risk level and flags it in your workflows without the need for manual searching.

To operationalize ODRs with Windward, agencies:

1. Translate scenario criteria into search queries that combine identity filters (flag, ownership, affiliations), activity filters (dark activity, loitering, meetings), and geography (exclusive economic zones, Areas of Interest).
2. Add context through AOIs, whether it’s ports, infrastructure zones, known drop-off hubs, or any other intelligence-defined area, created directly on the map or uploaded as coordinates.
3. Set up alerts by saving these queries as ODRs and assigning them the appropriate risk level.
4. Incorporate vessel lists in bulk or individually to target specific actors or groups of concern. 
5. Name and save ODRs clearly so that multiple teams can use them consistently without confusion.

Once the ODRs are defined and saved, they immediately become operational, automatically flagging vessels that meet the criteria and surfacing them in workflows without adding manual effort. To illustrate how this works in practice, let’s return once again to the example:

• Query 1: any vessel with Chinese affiliation + slow-speed sailing in territorial waters → medium risk ODR.
• Query 2: high/medium risk Chinese vessel + same behavior in the same AOI → high risk ODR.

By configuring these ODRs, agencies ensure that when a relevant vessel matches the scenario, it is automatically flagged at the correct risk level, enabling faster decision-making, reducing false positives, and ensuring technology aligns with policy priorities.

Turning Threat Mapping into an Operational Advantage

Risk and threat mapping provides the foundation for how intelligence and security organizations focus their attention, allocate resources, and respond to evolving threats. By following these five steps, agencies can translate broad strategic priorities into automated, precision detection inside the Windward platform.

This process ensures that every alert is grounded in both global intelligence and local operational reality. It aligns technology with mission priorities, reduces false positives, and empowers teams to focus on the events that matter most. Since threats evolve, this framework is designed to evolve with them – new priorities can be integrated, behaviors can be refined, and ODRs can be updated to maintain an accurate, living picture of your maritime risk landscape.

At its core, this framework turns strategy into action, ensuring that evolving risks and threats translate into clear, operational outcomes your teams can act on immediately. 

See How ODR Can Transform Your Risk & Threat Mapping