Cybercrime in road transport
This month Jim Houston – Client Strategy Director – and myself were featured in an article for Transport News magazine regarding cybercrime in the road haulage sector. We actually conducted the interview for the journalistic piece back in May 2024, but by the time this information has been compiled, edited, formatted and published we are well into July 2024.
In a nutshell the article discusses why the transport/logistics/haulage sector is such a prime target for cyber-attacks and what are the underlying reasons behind this activity.
It’s an interesting question since in its 2024 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, which analyses global cyber-crime by sector, IBM said 4.3% of attacks were aimed at transportation companies in 2023, up from 3.9% the year before.
So, since Fusion has a number of clients in what could be deemed the transport/logistics/haulage industry, we thought we should share our observations and opinions.
Firstly, hackers like to attack hauliers not so much because of the perceived value of the target company itself, but rather because of the potential to use its various interlocking systems as a kind of digital springboard into other suppliers, many of which contain more lucrative information. Plus, companies in the haulier sector are renowned for typically using older, less secure IT systems, which are relatively easy to circumvent and an easy target.
Next, the haulage sector has a bit of reputation for not updating its systems or operating on quite old applications, which do not have modern security features in place. And these systems are targeted because they possess lots of key data like the address, phone number, email address and most importantly the customer signature due to the need for POD (Proof of Delivery); what more do you need to take over someone’s life?
Plus, in many haulage firms the use of scanners, mobiles devices and Tom Tom’s is prevalent, and these devices are running legacy versions of software that are inherently insecure and typically not subject to any stringent MDM (Mobile Device Management) policy. For example, an Android device used for shipment scanning, but not restricted by an MDM policy, could access all manner of unsafe content on line and provide a potential foothold for a hacker to access the wider corporate network of the logistics organisation.
Furthermore, the haulage sector is a fast-moving industry characterised by time pressures and strict service delivery deadlines. Such conditions can cause email recipients to not be as vigilant as they normally would be and leave them open to phishing emails. These phishing emails can be extremely convincing if the hacker has reviewed the company website for key decision makers and then utilised generative AI to draft an extremely convincing and timely scam email purportedly from senior member of staff requesting a colleague action a financial transaction urgently.
For example, the bad actor will send a phishing email pretending to be the MD of the firm and instruct a junior member of the accounts team to urgently transfer a substantial amount of money to a supplier to ensure a deadline is met. What then transpires is the supplier is false and the account to which the funds have been transferred belongs to a hacker.
In addition, another development which has not yet made its way to the UK, but originates in the US, is the use of smishing on those individuals using toll roads to transport goods. On 12/04/2024 the FBI issued an alert after it received more than 2000 reports from at least tree US states about texts encouraging recipients to settle an outstanding toll road fee via a link in an SMS message. Recipients then click on the link and this triggers hacking activity on your phone. At time of writing, we believe this tactic is limited to the US, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that appeared on toll roads like the M25 – Dartford Tunnel or the M6.
We understand Transport News are going to run further content on cyber security in their next issue on how firms can protect themselves against an attack. But if you would like to find our more now, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Fusion directly.
Many thanks
Richard