Maritime security depends on the ability and capability to build \u201ca comprehensive awareness of maritime activity, which encompasses territorial and international waters, and to act accordingly\u201d [1]. This level of awareness can be reached in several steps, evolving from single-sensor into multi-sensor multi-cue systems, exploiting heterogeneous information extracted by different (hard and soft) sources, and integrating contextual information with the purpose of generating a faithful and timely comprehensive maritime picture. Heterogeneity and context play a crucial role at different levels of fusion, allowing the combination of complementary and multifaceted information, which should be shared among national or international actors. In this paper we aim at discussing why these global trends must be adopted and expanded to build analytical models which can effectively face asymmetric threats
