How to update ECDIS charts without a USB stick

Chart suppliers publish a value for every file they issue — a fingerprint of its exact contents. DIDI Chart recalculates that value and compares it, twice.

The first check happens ashore, before the file is allowed into the transfer at all. The second happens on board, after the file has arrived, on the ship's own hardware. A file only reaches the ECDIS if both checks match the supplier's published value.

That is what rules out a file that was truncated by a dropped connection, corrupted in storage, or altered in transit. It also means nobody on board has to inspect anything by hand — the update either verifies or it does not move.

Vessel connectivity is not a steady pipe. Transfers are built to survive that: if the link drops mid-update the onboard unit resumes from where it stopped rather than starting again, and it keeps working through low-bandwidth periods until the complete update is on board.

Nothing part-finished is ever presented to the ECDIS. Until an update has arrived in full and passed its second check, the ECDIS simply continues with the charts it already holds.

The connection itself only ever goes outward, from the ship. There is no inbound path and no port for anything outside to connect to.

There are only two ways into a navigation system, and both are closed rather than managed. Nothing is ever plugged into the ECDIS, so the removable-media route does not exist — and the ECDIS is never put on a network to fetch its own files, so there is nothing inbound to secure.

The onboard unit makes every connection itself, outward only. There is no inbound path to the vessel and no open port for anything outside to connect to. Traffic runs under TLS 1.3, and the shore service sits behind firewall isolation on a zero-trust design, with access tied to identity rather than to being on a network.

That leaves one question: whether what arrived is what the supplier issued. SecureReceive answers it by recalculating the supplier's own published value for every file — once ashore before the transfer, once again on the ship's own hardware afterwards. Both have to agree before the ECDIS is offered anything, which is why a truncated, corrupted or altered file stops where it is instead of installing like a good one.

Each vessel reports where it stands: update received, verified, and made available to the ECDIS. The dashboard shows that per ship and across the fleet, so a pending or stalled vessel is visible without anyone having to ask the crew.

Because every update is stamped with date, vessel and result, the same view is the evidence trail. When an inspector, auditor or vetting inspector asks what was installed and when, the answer is an export rather than a search through emails.

It runs in a browser on desktop, tablet or phone. There is nothing to install and no client software to keep updated.