Cybercrime is a growing threat in the trucking industry, and small- and mid-sized businesses could face the biggest risks, according to Attrix president Anthony Mainville.
Speaking at the company’s Symposium on Intelligent Transport, in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., Mainville said ransomware-related cyber attacks increased 80% last year, and the annual growth of such attacks in transportation reached as high as 186% in June, reports Today’s Trucking.
“This is a subject that we must take seriously,” TT reported him saying. “It is a scourge that will particularly attack small and medium-sized businesses because they are less equipped than large corporations to defend themselves.”
Mainville noted that the FBI identified the trucking industry had become a significant and growing target for hackers.
It can take businesses 252 days to even identify an attack, he added. “All the while, the cyber attacker is playing in your computer system.”
The trucking industry is particularly attractive to cybercriminals because of supply chain pressures and restricted capacities, Mainville said. And trucking businesses can lack skilled IT personnel, leading to limited monitoring and defences.
To compound matters, trucks are becoming increasingly connected, leaving openings that could be hacked to corrupt an onboard computer, infiltrate corporate systems, or even shut down a truck.
“The truck has become a mobile computer, but a mobile computer that is at risk,” he said.
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