Wilkens: How data-theft ransomware is disrupting fleet operations and customer trust

Ransomware has been one of the most disruptive cybersecurity threats facing the transportation sector for more than a decade. Early attacks were crude, but effective. Attackers would encrypt every file, display a ransom note, and hope that the victim paid. Over time, improved backup strategies and more effective response playbooks allowed more organizations to restore operations without giving in to the attacker’s demands. But as defenses improved, the bad actors shifted their tactics. Today, while encryption-based ransomware attacks still occur, the most common risk is no longer getting locked out of your systems; it is the stolen or exfiltrated data being used for extortion.

This evolution matters because trucking companies are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs of these types of attacks. The bad actors leverage the fact that trucking runs on trust, tight margins, time-constrained dispatch, and billing workflows. Fleets also handle a large volume of sensitive information related to customers, employees, and freight.

Downtime anywhere in the operation creates nearly immediate financial consequences. The potential loss of trust that can occur when sensitive information is exposed can have a significant negative impact on an organization’s ability to attract and retain lucrative contracts, top-tier employees, and brokers. Cybercriminals leverage these weak points with brutal efficiency.

Weaponizing data

Why does it work? Exfiltration-based extortion works exceptionally well for several reasons:

Operational data is sensitive

Load lists, routing details, customer data, rate contracts, and internal emails all carry commercial value. Attackers understand that the exposure of this data could damage partnerships or expose competitive information.

Customer trust

Shippers expect discretion. A carrier breach involving customer documents or financial information, internal communications, or load details can cause reputational damage to the carrier and undermine that trust relationship.

Interconnectivity

Trucking companies regularly exchange sensitive data with brokers, shippers, factoring partners, telematics providers, maintenance vendors, and many other third parties. A breach in one environment can cascade into many other connected businesses, multiplying the leverage available to the attacker.

Time pressures

Traditional encryption-based attacks leverage the pain of costly downtime, which most carriers cannot afford. Even though systems often remain online during the new style of extortion attacks, attackers leverage stolen data, creating legal, regulatory, and contractual urgency that they exploit.

This combination of sensitive data, an ecosystem of interdependent systems, and operational pressures has made data exfiltration an effective tool for bad actors targeting the transportation sector.

Faster, quieter, more targeted

Today’s ransomware actors behave more like business units than ever. They research their target well prior to initiating their attacks. They read public filings, review job postings, map out vendor relationships, and use social media to identify key players in the organization. This allows them to understand which people, systems, and relationships will provide the most effective pressure points in an organization.

Most modern extortion attacks follow a consistent sequence of stages:

1. Initial access: Many initial entry points are gained through valid credentials (stolen or phished), compromised vendors, or exposed external services.
2. Lateral movement: Lateral movement is facilitated using legitimate tools already inside the environment to evade detection, a technique known as living off the land (LOTL).
3. Data exploration: Attackers target billing systems, dispatch platforms, load planning tools, document management systems, active directory accounts, email, cloud storage, or anywhere else that valuable data might reside.
4. Data exfiltration: Data is sometimes selected for maximum leverage value and sometimes collected in bulk using a “smash and grab” mentality and is then exfiltrated through encrypted tunnels or utilizing external storage services chosen to blend in with normal network traffic in the environment.
5. Extortion notice: In many cases, the extortion notice is the first indication that an attack has occurred as the earlier steps are often executed without triggering any detection alerts.

Attackers focus on speed and precision, with many breaches going through all the stages from initial access to active extortion notices in under 48 hours.

New methods, new rules

Executives accustomed to the traditional ransomware playbook need to adjust expectations. Several longstanding assumptions about these types of attacks no longer hold up.

Backups are not enough

Backups remain essential, but they are not going to prevent an extortion attack. If attackers steal data and leverage the threat of exposure in an extortion attack, restoring systems from backup does nothing to reduce their leverage.

Perimeter defenses alone won’t stop modern attacks

VPNs, firewalls, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools are still important, but attackers are increasingly using valid credentials, weaponized remote management and monitoring (RMM) tools, or compromised vendor accounts to gain access to target networks.

Paying the ransom does not guarantee safety

Once the data is out, there is simply no way to ensure that it will not be resold, leaked, or even stolen from the original threat-actor and used in subsequent extortion attacks.

To effectively counter this threat, a new approach to budgeting and prioritization is required. The spending focus must shift from restoration to prevention and containment.

Identity management is critical

Most extortion attacks are leveraging compromised valid credentials. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) must be active on every account on every system. Strict access controls around administrative accounts are needed, along with continuous identity monitoring and alerting. Non-human identities and system accounts must be secured with the same level of protection as user accounts and administrators.

Segmentation and least privilege

Limit how far attackers can get once they are inside the network. Segment areas of the network based on function or sensitivity so that a compromised account cannot expose everything in the network. Keep dispatch, billing, maintenance, HR, and operational technology resources separate from one another with physical and logical controls.

Vendor risk management

Many attacks involve exploits of vendors’ systems or vendor access to internal systems. It is important to conduct security reviews on all current and prospective vendors, and choose vendors with mature security practices. Audit vendor permissions regularly, prohibit the use of any shared (both internally and externally) credentials, implement least-privilege integrations, and require MFA for all third-party access.

Data governance

Know where your sensitive data lives, and know who can access it. Know how your data is moved and when. Set forth a strong data identification program combined with a structured document retention and destruction policy that clearly defines timelines, which is paramount when data is no longer needed. Having these tried-and-true methodologies will minimize unnecessary risk of exposure. Always encrypt data both in transit and at rest using the strongest practical encryption standards for the given use case.

Detection and response

Modern attacks unfold extremely quickly. Response times cannot be measured in hours or days; every second counts. Organizations must invest in systems and processes capable of machine-speed detection and response. Once data leaves the network, there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Ransomware is not a just cybersecurity problem

The threat posed by ransomware and extortion attacks is not just a cybersecurity problem, nor is it “just” an IT problem. It is an organizational risk to both business continuity and a reputational risk. As the cybersecurity threat landscape continues to evolve and extortion attack techniques become more sophisticated, they have come to rely less on ransomware and more on the weaponization of data. Fleets must continue to adjust their strategies to best prepare themselves to protect their operations, their customers, and their long-term reputation in this trust-based industry.