The Nationwide Motor Freight Site visitors Affiliation (NMFTA) has issued one other warning to the logistics and transportation trade as conventional cargo theft is being quickly changed by refined, cyber-enabled heists.
CargoNet reported in October that it recorded over 700 cargo thefts within the US and Canada within the third quarter of 2025, with the worth of the stolen items totaling greater than $111 million. In response to the American Trucking Associations, thieves focusing on freight shipments value the US financial system as much as $35 billion per yr.
Whereas up to now thieves would generally rob truck drivers at gunpoint or break into trailers, any such crime has turn out to be more and more refined, primarily pushed by criminals’ reliance on hacker techniques.
In response to the NMFTA’s 2026 Transportation Business Cybersecurity Traits Report, crime syndicates have leveraged each conventional deception and cyber strategies in campaigns aimed toward brokers, carriers, and shippers.
“These assaults served because the entry level for ransomware, knowledge theft, and extortion schemes, and more and more fashioned the muse for cyber-enabled cargo crimes. Throughout the sector, the correlation between digital compromise and bodily theft is now unmistakable. Cyber intrusion usually precedes or straight permits theft of freight.”
Proofpoint lately detailed the actions of a menace actor that has been hacking into the methods of transportation firms with the last word purpose of stealing bodily items.
The hackers deployed distant entry instruments on carriers’ methods, enabling them to hijack accounts, which they will use to ebook hundreds and divert precious shipments to their very own operatives.
Social engineering is among the mostly used techniques. It may be helpful for gaining preliminary entry to victims’ methods, impersonating carriers, hijacking accounts, and manipulating load tenders and different dispatch documentation.
Nevertheless, there are lots of different cyber-related parts concerned in assaults on the transportation sector. Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
For example, criminals can purchase inside knowledge belonging to a focused firm from the darkish net, together with transport lanes, driver information, billing templates, and insurance coverage data, together with credentials that grant entry to their networks, all stolen in earlier breaches suffered by the goal. This data will be extremely helpful in planning and finishing up an assault.
AI may play an essential position, because it permits attackers to jot down convincing phishing emails or generate deepfake voice calls to trick victims.
“Dangerous actors used AI-generated emails, deep-fake voice calls, and spoofed dispatch updates to misdirect shipments or extort funds by fraudulent detention or lumper charges. In lots of circumstances, attackers used enterprise e mail compromise (BEC) to take over reliable communication channels and fraudulently ebook hundreds, ship false pickup authorizations, change banking data, or change supply directions.”
Assaults performed by cyber-enabled cargo thieves have additionally concerned the infiltration of dispatch methods, and spoofing or jamming of GPS indicators to facilitate the theft of shipments.
Whereas cyber-enabled theft is rampant, the NMFTA has additionally seen some constructive tendencies, together with the truth that the transportation sector is embracing cybersecurity consciousness coaching.
“Fleets and logistics firms that invested in ongoing social engineering consciousness coaching and phishing simulations noticed measurable reductions in profitable social-engineering incidents,” the group stated.
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