By: Viraj Shah

Freight-transporting companies have extra challenges when it comes to cybersecurity. By their very nature, many more people are involved with the company than in other industries. Not only are there the employees back at the office or in home offices, but there are also warehouse staff, drivers, the employees of logistics companies that are partners with your company, and even inspection officials. Each of these people is a possible leak of proprietary company information, which includes private customer information about the sender, the receiver, and any partners of those two parties. Fortunately, there are strategies for dealing with that kind of cybersecurity as applicable to freight companies.

Practicing Risk Management

The idea is to mitigate the inherent risk along the supply chain and delivery chain as much as possible while still maintaining the integrity of your delivery schedules. Some common points of pain when it comes to security include payment technology, fleet-tracking software, automatic warehouse processes, and web-based “track-your-package” software for customers to get updates.

In each case, it’s possible to install robust security protocols that help you offset the risks associated with these portions of your business. Because of the work of certain companies, there are now industry standards regarding these security protocols. With those in place, it’s possible for you to evaluate any such security programs and policies as necessary.

Robust Auditing Procedures

By keeping track not only of each piece of freight that you ship but also the trends regarding these shipments, you can spot both singular places where things go awry and trends of problems. Checking the credentials of other companies with which you do business is a good place to start. Then, analyze each order that gets placed. Check the departure date and time, the estimated date and time of delivery, what’s on board when the driver leaves, what’s supposed to be on board when the driver reaches the delivery destination, and any items that have gone missing. Also, check any items that are supposed to be transferred to other delivery vehicles to get where they’re going.

Keep Tabs on the Network and the Internet

Part of this is insisting that your employees all have strong passwords and two-factor authentication in place to be able to access the applicable data for their jobs. Of course, nothing will keep out every hacker, but the idea is to make your company and its business practices enough of a hurdle to the hackers that they move on to easier pickings. Sure, they could break your security, but in the multiple days that it could take them, they could just as easily hack multiple places with lesser security.

Anti-Hacking Training

Often, phishing emails and other scams masquerade as legitimate emails from recognizable companies. Training your employees in “the tricks of the trade” to be able to recognize these scams will go a long way towards mitigating the danger of hacks.

Stay Up-To-Date

Older technology systems are more susceptible to hacks than newer systems. The same holds true of older programs. So, it pays to update both your hardware and software at regular intervals.

Published by: Nelly Chavez