TL;DR: Logistics cyberattacks can quickly turn into freight theft when attackers use stolen credentials to impersonate trusted partners, or exploit critical systems. The biggest protections are strong MFA, monitoring of identity, network and critical systems, carrier verification, strong asset visibility and clear and tested response.
Logistics cybersecurity matters because the systems that move freight now control far more than data. Email, carrier identities, load boards, TMS platforms, EDI, APIs, telematics and warehouse systems influence where cargo goes, whether customers can transact and whether operations keep moving. A cyberattack can become a stolen load, an outage or a lost customer.
In 2025, cyber-enabled cargo theft contributed to nearly $725 million in estimated losses across the United States and Canada, according to CargoNet data cited by the FBI. Criminals are compromising legitimate broker and carrier systems, impersonating trusted companies and manipulating the processes businesses already use to move freight.
That changes the cybersecurity conversation.
About the author: Wil Klusovsky is CRO at viLogics, where he helps organizations connect cybersecurity risk to operational resilience, business continuity, and executive decision-making.
A stolen credential can become a stolen load.
How does a stolen credential become a stolen load? Attackers compromise an email, carrier, broker, TMS, load-board, or remote-access account and use that trusted identity to alter shipment details, impersonate a legitimate company, or arrange a fraudulent pickup. The physical freight theft succeeds because the attacker has manipulated the digital trust process that logistics companies use to move cargo.
Cybersecurity is now part of freight protection. A compromised broker, carrier, employee or vendor account can be used to redirect loads, alter payment instructions or manipulate trusted logistics processes. An attack can also take down EDI connections or the systems needed to book, move, track and invoice freight. The right cybersecurity program connects identity security, asset visibility, continuous monitoring, tested recovery and operational verification so a cyber incident does not become a larger business interruption.
Cybersecurity belongs in the operating model because the consequences land in operations, finance, customer service, legal, leadership and the boardroom.
Logistics companies run on trust, speed and connected systems.
Cyber risk can attack all three.
The U.S. transportation system moved an average of approximately 55.5 million tons of freight worth more than $51.2 billion every day in 2023, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Every one of those shipments depends on a chain of information and decisions.
Someone needs to know what the load is. Someone needs to know where it is going. Someone needs to know who is authorized to move it.
A customer may send information through EDI. A broker may tender the load through a digital platform. A carrier may depend on telematics and mobile systems. A warehouse may rely on scanners, automation and a WMS. Finance needs the right payment instructions. Customer service needs accurate shipment status.
Digital trust is woven through the operation.
| What gets compromised | What the business experiences |
|---|---|
| Broker, carrier or employee account | Fake loads, stolen identities, redirected freight |
| Email account | Diverted payments, altered instructions, fraudulent approvals |
| TMS, WMS or EDI connection | Freight cannot be booked, released, tracked or processed normally |
| Telematics or GPS | Loss of visibility, routing errors, operational disruption |
| SaaS platform or API | Exposure spreads across partners and connected systems |
| Warehouse technology | Delayed receiving, picking, loading and fulfillment |
| Backup or recovery process | Longer outage, missed shipments, reporting problems and customer loss |
A CEO does not need a malware briefing to understand those outcomes.
A COO understands delayed freight. A CFO understands demurrage, lost revenue and payment fraud. A customer understands that their shipment did not arrive.
The technology may sit inside IT.
The consequence does not stay there.
Cyber-enabled cargo theft works because criminals can exploit trusted business processes after compromising a digital identity.
The FBI's April 2026 warning describes attackers targeting transportation and logistics companies through spoofed emails, fake URLs and compromised accounts. Once access is established, criminals can impersonate legitimate brokers or carriers and post fraudulent listings on load boards.
That is the bridge between cybercrime and physical theft.
The criminal does not need a fake truck if they can look like a real company.
Attackers can use compromised access to manipulate:
The truck can be real. The driver can be real. The warehouse can be real. The process can appear completely normal to most of the people involved.
The problem is that somebody changed who everyone trusts.
The cyberattack is the setup. The stolen freight is the payoff.
CargoNet's 2025 data found that confirmed cargo theft incidents rose 18% and the average theft value increased 36% to $273,990. The overall number of supply-chain crime events remained relatively flat, but criminals shifted toward more valuable targets.
That pattern continued in Q2 2026. CargoNet documented 677 incidents, down 26% year over year, while estimated losses climbed to $304.6 million, more than double the $135.7 million recorded for Q2 2025.
Incident counts went down. Financial damage went up.
That is an important lesson for cybersecurity leaders too. Counting blocked attacks tells leadership very little about actual business exposure.
The better question is: what can an attacker reach when one attempt succeeds?
There is no useful universal number for what a logistics cyberattack costs per hour.
The real number depends on what stopped.
An email outage at a small brokerage creates a different business impact than losing EDI at an LTL carrier, shutting down a global forwarding platform or losing the systems that run a distribution center.
Real incidents give us something more useful than a generic average. They show where the money actually goes.
In February 2022, Expeditors International suffered a targeted cyberattack.
The company shut down most of its global connectivity, operating and accounting systems while it worked to contain and recover from the attack. For approximately three weeks, Expeditors had limited ability to arrange freight shipments, manage customs and distribution activities or perform normal accounting functions.
The financial impact followed the operational disruption. Expeditors reported approximately:
The company recorded about $65 million in additional expenses, net of recoveries. It also said customers used other providers while its operating systems were unavailable.
Look at where the cost landed:
That is why I resist conversations that reduce cybersecurity to an IT budget. The malware is almost the least interesting part of this case. The business interruption is the story.
Forward Air detected ransomware affecting its operational and information technology systems in December 2020.
The company later estimated that the event lost approximately $7.5 million in LTL revenue, primarily because it temporarily suspended electronic data interfaces with customers.
EDI sounds technical until it stops. Then orders stop moving normally. Documents become harder to exchange. Customers lose connectivity. Freight is delayed. Revenue starts feeling the outage.
For a mid-market logistics company, that may be a more relatable example than a $300 million global event. A digital connection to your client is also a revenue connection.
KNP Logistics suffered a ransomware attack in 2023 that affected systems, processes and financial information.
The company was already dealing with difficult market conditions, so it would be inaccurate to say ransomware alone destroyed the business. The attack became a major catalyst.
Administrators said KNP's financial position was damaged and that the company could not secure the urgent investment it needed. Approximately 730 employees were made redundant when the group entered administration.
A later Bloomberg investigation reported another important detail. Attackers had gained access through brute-force credential attacks and destroyed a backup containing critical financial data. KNP could revert to some manual operating processes, but the loss of financial information created problems for lenders and potential buyers.
The company had purchased a £1 million cyber insurance policy shortly before the attack. The insurer ultimately paid the policy, but it did not cover the losses associated with administration.
Insurance helped transfer some financial risk. It could not rebuild the business.
That distinction matters. Cyber insurance is part of risk management. It is not a recovery plan.
The 2017 NotPetya attack on A.P. Moller-Maersk remains one of the clearest historical examples of digital dependency in transportation.
Maersk reported a $250 million to $300 million impact on profitability, with the vast majority associated with Maersk Line.
I would not use an event from 2017 to tell you how frequently ransomware attacks logistics companies today. That would be bad analysis.
The case still demonstrates what happens when interconnected technology supporting freight and terminal operations disappears at scale. Nine years later, logistics is even more connected.
The attack surface follows the operation.
A logistics company may have laptops, Microsoft 365 and the normal technology found in almost any business.
Then there is everything attached to moving freight. That can include:
NMFTA's 2026 Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report explicitly expanded its previous trucking focus because cyber risk now spans the broader transportation ecosystem. The report highlights SaaS platforms, telematics, APIs, vendor dependencies and the convergence of digital and physical risk.
This is where asset visibility becomes much more than an inventory exercise. You need to know what exists. Then you need to know what the business depends on.
The old warehouse system running an unsupported operating system might look like a low-value asset in an IT spreadsheet. If it controls every shipping label leaving your largest facility, the business may have a very different opinion.
The forgotten vendor VPN matters. The API nobody has reviewed since 2020 matters. The telematics administrator with excessive access matters. The service account nobody remembers creating matters.
Which assets exist is useful information. What stops when an asset fails is the answer leadership needs.
viLogics helps logistics organizations use asset visibility and exposure management to identify internet-exposed systems, unmanaged assets, risky vendor connections, and the technology dependencies that could interrupt freight movement.
Connected warehouses and fleet environments may also require a different operating approach than normal office IT. viLogics' OT and IoT security work focuses on operational systems, connected devices, vendor access and uptime constraints.
Yes. And you do not need a cybersecurity provider to tell you that.
Before viLogics enters the conversation, the logistics industry has already spoken. Trucking associations maintain cybercrime-reporting programs. Freight brokers track fraud. Railroads run 24/7 cybersecurity operations. Maritime organizations operate dedicated threat-sharing communities. Transportation groups publish cybersecurity reports, training, standards and incident resources.
The American Trucking Associations operates Fleet CyWatch, a trucking-specific program that helps fleets report internet crime and cyberattacks that could disrupt their operations.
Fleet CyWatch shares threat information, coordinates with federal authorities, provides cyber education and benchmarks trucking cybersecurity programs. That exists because cyber risk has become an operating issue for fleets.
The Transportation Intermediaries Association represents the 3PL and freight-broker community.
In its April 2025 State of Fraud report, 22% of surveyed respondents said their companies had lost more than $200,000 to fraud during the preceding six months.
There is an important caveat. The underlying survey included only 59 self-selected TIA member respondents. I would not extrapolate that percentage across every 3PL in America. The data is still useful as directional evidence from people operating inside the industry.
It also exposes another cost that rarely shows up on a cyber dashboard. Sixty-five percent of respondents said fraud prevention consumed more than two hours per day. Twenty-four percent described it as an all-day activity.
That is a labor tax across operations, brokerage, finance, customer service and claims. People are spending working hours validating whether the business transaction in front of them is real.
The Association of American Railroads says freight railroads began coordinating cybersecurity efforts in 1999.
AAR describes NIST-based cybersecurity programs, dedicated cyber teams, threat sharing, exercises and 24/7 monitoring across an industry whose physical infrastructure and digital dispatch systems are deeply connected.
The Maritime Transportation System ISAC works with ports, terminal operators, shipping lines, maritime logistics organizations, government organizations and technology providers.
Its description is refreshingly direct: “We are not a regulator. We are not a vendor. We are a collaborative hub.”
MTS-ISAC provides maritime-specific threat intelligence, incident coordination, working groups and workforce-development support.
NMFTA now publishes a Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report covering the broader freight ecosystem. It also provides transportation-specific cybersecurity resources around freight fraud, vendors, cyber-enabled cargo theft, connected vehicles and incident response.
The point is not that every logistics company needs the same cybersecurity model. They do not.
The point is that your own industry has invested time, money and organizational infrastructure into this problem. It is hard to call cybersecurity a theoretical IT concern when trucking, rail, brokerage and maritime organizations are building programs specifically to deal with it.
The program should protect the business processes required to move freight, serve clients and generate revenue. Leaders need to understand that does not limit assessment and protection to only those systems, rather understand the data flow, dependencies, and attack paths. Some less critical system sitting on the network could still provide an attacker access to these critical systems.
This is the reason to stress asset visibility, systems and data criticality, and data flow mapping.
That means matching a business risk to the digital event that can create it, assigning ownership and building the capability needed to reduce the exposure.
| Business risk | Digital trigger | Business owner | Required capability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stolen or rerouted cargo | Compromised email, carrier identity, load board, TMS or remote-access account | Operations | Strong MFA, identity and email monitoring, carrier/load verification, endpoint protection, rapid investigation and escalation |
| Diverted payment | Mailbox compromise, fraudulent payment change, impersonation or identity manipulation | Finance | Email security, strong MFA, change monitoring, dual approval and independent verification of payment changes |
| TMS, WMS or EDI outage | Ransomware, compromised credentials, system intrusion or vulnerable application | Operations + IT | Detection and response, incident planning, continuity procedures, protected backups and tested recovery |
| Warehouse interruption | Compromised OT/IoT, operational systems, network access or vendor remote access | Operations | Asset visibility, network segmentation, monitoring, strong remote-access controls and vendor access management |
| Vendor or API compromise | Compromised SaaS provider, telematics platform, marketplace, API or integration | Leadership + Procurement + TPRM(security/GRC) | Vendor assessment, least privilege, secure API access, logging, contractual security requirements, incident notification and ongoing review |
| Slow or failed recovery | Destroyed backups, unclear restoration order or unknown business dependencies | Operations + IT | Isolated backups, restore testing, business impact analysis, dependency mapping, recovery priorities and clear ownership |
| Persistent freight fraud | Spoofing, stolen identities, altered records, fraudulent carriers or abuse of trusted business processes | Operations + Finance | Identity and carrier verification, monitoring, threat intelligence, exception procedures and cross-functional escalation |
The business owner column matters. Spoofing cannot live solely with IT if the outcome is a fraudulent pickup. Payment diversion cannot live solely with security if finance has authority to change bank details. A TMS outage cannot be owned solely by the CISO when the COO has to decide how freight moves tomorrow morning.
Cybersecurity becomes much easier to manage when the business consequence has an owner.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 provides a clean structure for the program. It organizes cybersecurity around six functions:
Govern. Identify. Protect. Detect. Respond. Recover.
Those six words work surprisingly well in a logistics boardroom.
Who owns cybersecurity risk? Which decisions stay with security? Which decisions belong to operations, finance, legal or leadership? What risk is the business willing to accept? What does your MSP, MSSP or MDR provider actually own?
A documented policy helps. Clear ownership at 2:13 a.m. helps more.
What systems, devices, applications, identities and vendors support the operation? Which ones could stop:
This is where asset visibility, business impact analysis and exposure management need to connect. An asset list tells you what exists. A business impact analysis tells you what matters.
Reduce the attack paths that could reach critical operations. That may include MFA, email security, endpoint protection, identity controls, vulnerability management, segmentation, employee training and stronger vendor controls.
Logistics also needs operational verification. If someone suddenly changes a bank account, carrier profile, pickup instruction, shipment destination or insurance detail, there should be a process for validating the change through another trusted channel.
The FBI specifically recommends multi-channel verification and stronger carrier-vetting processes as part of the response to cyber-enabled cargo theft.
Cybersecurity monitoring handles one part of the problem. Operations handles another. They have to meet in the middle.
Would you know somebody was inside before a load disappeared or the ransomware note arrived?
Monitor the places where business trust lives:
Security data becomes far more valuable when the analyst understands the business context behind it. A suspicious login and an unusual destination change may look unrelated when security and operations work in different rooms. Together, they tell a different story.
Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report dataset for Transportation and Warehousing included 689 security incidents and 652 confirmed breaches. The research found external actors dominating the dataset, with financial motivation appearing in 89% and compromised credentials appearing in 27%. Transportation and Warehousing is a broad NAICS category that also includes passenger transportation, so these figures should not be relabeled as trucking-specific statistics.
Who owns the first 30 minutes? Who can disable an account? Who validates a suspicious shipment? Who contacts a client? Who calls legal? Who contacts the cyber insurer? Who can isolate a system if that action may interrupt freight? Who makes the decision to keep operating or shut something down?
The worst time to assign those responsibilities is during the attack.
I wrote a separate guide around this exact problem because “managed” security can still leave the business exposed when nobody knows where one provider's responsibility ends and another person's starts. Read: What Is MDR? Managed Detection and Response Ownership Guide.
The first 30 minutes can determine whether a security event stays contained or turns into an operations, revenue and client problem.
Can you restore the technology? Then comes the harder question. Can you restore the business?
Those are separate tests. A backup tells you data exists. A successful restore proves the data can be restored.
Business recovery means proving that people can again book loads, connect with customers, operate warehouses, process payments, clear freight and perform the work that produces revenue.
Recovery should be measured in business outcomes. What has to come back first? How long can each process be unavailable? What backlog will accumulate? Which clients need priority? Who determines when the system is safe to return to production?
That is resilience.
Manufacturing and Transportation and Warehousing are separate NAICS sectors.
Manufacturers depend heavily on logistics. Many run private fleets, warehouses and shipping operations. Manufacturing breach statistics are still not proof of cyber risk at trucking companies, freight brokers, warehouses or standalone logistics organizations.
Verizon, for example, reports Manufacturing under NAICS 31–33 and Transportation and Warehousing under NAICS 48–49. Transportation and Warehousing itself includes passenger transportation, so even those figures require careful labeling.
This article uses logistics-specific evidence where it is available and identifies broader Transportation and Warehousing data appropriately. That may feel overly cautious. I prefer that to scaring a leadership team with somebody else's statistic.
Company size is not a security control. Attackers do not need a famous brand if they can compromise an account that people already trust.
A broker login. A carrier identity. An exposed remote-access service. A vulnerable application. A finance mailbox. A vendor account. A TMS administrator.
Those are useful because of what they can do inside the freight process.
KNP is also a useful warning for smaller and mid-market businesses because resilience resources matter after the initial compromise. A huge enterprise may absorb weeks of disruption. A smaller company may have less cash, fewer redundant systems, a smaller internal team and fewer options when lenders, clients or suppliers need answers quickly.
The right question is not: “Are we big enough for somebody to target us?”
Ask: “What could somebody do with the access we already give our employees, vendors and business partners?”
Use this with your operations, IT, security and leadership teams. The goal is not to score perfectly. It is to find the places where the answer is unclear.
If several answers are unclear, you probably do not need another software demo yet. You need a clearer picture of the exposure, the operational dependencies and who owns the response.
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Managed security can provide the continuous visibility, investigation, escalation and response capacity that many logistics organizations cannot reasonably staff themselves around the clock.
That does not make an MSSP or MDR provider responsible for every part of freight protection.
A security analyst cannot confirm whether the person standing at a warehouse gate should receive a particular trailer. An MDR provider cannot know whether every last-minute route change is legitimate. A SOC cannot replace carrier vetting.
Managed security handles the cyber side of that operating model. It can help detect:
Then the process has to connect detection to the people who can act. For logistics organizations, managed security should create operational confidence: someone is watching the identities, systems, remote connections and high-risk activity that can interrupt freight movement. When something looks wrong, the right people need the right context quickly enough to protect the business.
Depending on the gaps, the solution may involve:
A managed security service is an operating model for continuous visibility, detection, investigation, escalation and response coordination. It belongs inside a wider resilience program.
That is also how viLogics approaches managed cybersecurity services. The goal is stronger monitoring and response combined with clearer ownership of the daily security work that protects the business.
You do not need to become a cybersecurity expert to govern cybersecurity well.
You do need to understand where cyber risk can affect the business, what decisions have already been made and where leadership still needs to make one.
Bring these questions into your next leadership, operations or risk meeting:
Which technology dependencies could stop us from moving freight or serving clients?
Identify the systems, vendors, facilities and integrations the business cannot operate without.
How long could we realistically operate without our TMS, WMS, EDI, email or other critical systems?
Do not stop at recovery-time targets. Ask what the business would actually look like during the outage and which clients would feel it first.
Which cyber risks have we consciously decided to accept?
Leadership cannot accept a risk it does not understand. Know what remains exposed, why it was accepted and what business impact comes with that decision.
What cyber event could create the greatest operational or financial impact for us?
The answer should connect technology risk to freight movement, revenue, safety, client commitments or business continuity.
Who has authority to make difficult decisions during an incident?
Know who can isolate a system, stop a process, notify a client, involve law enforcement, contact the insurer or make a decision that affects operations.
What recovery order has the business agreed to?
IT may restore systems, but leadership should help determine which business services, locations, clients and workflows need to return first.
Which third parties create the greatest dependency or concentration of risk?
Consider SaaS providers, telematics platforms, freight marketplaces, carriers, warehouses, cloud providers, brokers and technology vendors.
What evidence tells us our cybersecurity program is actually working?
Do not settle for tool counts or dashboards. Ask about incidents detected, response performance, recovery tests, unresolved risks, recurring weaknesses and meaningful improvements.
These questions move the conversation away from security activity and toward business exposure, decisions and ownership.
That is where cybersecurity belongs.
This article uses public reports, government alerts, company filings and transportation-industry guidance. Where a source reports Transportation and Warehousing data, that classification is identified. Cross-industry figures are treated as context and are not presented as logistics-specific loss estimates.
Primary sources include:
The most useful cybersecurity question for a logistics executive is probably not: “How many attacks did we block?”
Ask: “What could stop us from moving freight, getting paid or serving our clients, and would we know soon enough to do something about it?”
That question connects cyber risk to the business. Identity security connects to cargo. Monitoring connects to response. Recovery connects to revenue. Vendor management connects to continuity. Cybersecurity spending connects to the operation leadership is responsible for protecting.
If you cannot clearly explain what could stop operations, where your largest cyber exposures sit, who is monitoring them and who owns the response, viLogics can help.
We work with organizations that need to protect freight, client trust, revenue and continuity across connected operating environments.
Start with a conversation about your cybersecurity program. We can help identify the systems and business processes that matter most, clarify where the gaps are and determine what stronger visibility, detection, response and recovery should look like for your operation.
Talk to us about your cybersecurity program