Though you probably won’t come across any hard data either way, there’s good reason to believe that the holiday shopping season is one of the most attractive to bad actors who want to carry out cyberattacks. They’d stand to make the most money by infecting a logistics company’s servers with ransomware. Managers would probably be more willing to shell out whatever cryptocurrency tokens they’re demanding when there’s a huge amount of freight on the line.
In some of the most brazen attacks, data crackers have stolen entire customer lists and used them to extort money. There have been instances where bad actors actually use stolen credentials to sign up for credit services. While this is going on, the movement of freight grinds to an absolute halt. During the holiday season when freight movement is at an all-time high, it’s important to be proactive about preventing cyberattacks.
Keeping Shipments Moving With Security
Road and rail shippers have to invest in digital infrastructure that’s designed to stop this kind of threat before it starts. By building secure supply chain standards from the ground up, shippers can keep materials flowing even when there’s an attack. Network assets have to be programmed in such a way that they don’t allow bad actors to simply do whatever they wish with them. Newer artificial intelligence algorithms can potentially stop this class of attack before it starts, but getting such solutions out to a wide variety of organizations is going to take some time.
At the moment, it appears as though logistics companies will continue to struggle with the potential for cyberattacks to take down their whole systems. Countless truckers and even railroad dispatchers rely on satellite and Internet-based mapping technologies. Taking these out would virtually strand entire fleets since backup plans haven’t yet been put into place.
Engineers continue to work on technological solutions, but it’s always a good idea to have some contingencies at hand just in case something happens during the holiday rush. After all, certain criminal groups could potentially use the confusion surrounding this time period to cause further issues.
Taking Advantage Of The Rush
One specific attack saw 15 email addresses compromised in such a way that data crackers seized control of an entire freight company’s operations. This was because nobody had taken the time to secure them. When things get busy at work, it’s likely that such seemingly minor concerns would be overlooked.
That’s precisely why so many crackers would take the opportunity during the holiday rush to stage an attack. Managers and information technology department staffers are probably paying less attention to minute details during this time, thus providing an opportunity to stage a fairly large attack. Representatives of companies that receive shipment details over an Internet connection might not even be aware that something went wrong until it’s too late.
No matter what time of year it is or how busy the office might be, it’s important to pay close attention to cybersecurity-related issues. Doing so can actually save quite a bit of time in the long run by preventing major breakdowns from taking place.