It was 2004 when President George W. Bush signed legislation declaring the month of October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Since then, every president and Congress have joined on an annual basis to reiterate the declaration.
That makes 2023 the 20th year in which Cybersecurity Awareness Month will be recognized. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency is marking the occasion by emphasizing the importance of four key steps that every digitized business in America should take to stay safe from attackers:
- Use strong passwords and a password manager
- Turn on multifactor authentication
- Recognize and report phishing
- Update software
Some of these have stood the test of time and could have been recommended back in 2004. But they are still important imperatives today.
In the meantime, we at NMFTA have already offered considerable insight on cybersecurity issues specific to the trucking industry (especially LTL carriers). So we’d like to suggest that you observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month by soaking up insight such as:
The real cost of cyberattacks to trucking companies, which can be more than $10 million. We discussed this topic on Freightwaves in July, and we expanded on it in this blog post.
Do you know about little data? It’s the information you’ve got in your e-mail inbox, on spreadsheets in your files and on piles of paper on your desk. It’s critical, but most trucking companies don’t have an effective way of managing, deploying, or securing it. Perygee CEO Mollie Breen shared thoughts on this in an excellent webinar, and we recapped it for you here.
The global trends in cyber warfare tell us a lot about how we can protect our enterprises and fleets. We brought in Eitan Richman, an Israeli operations specialist, to give us the lay of the land. He told us about what’s happening in the world of independent and corporate hackers, but also about cyberattacks launched by nation-states. We also wrote a recap of Eitan’s presentation, which you can find here.
Did you know the federal government has a great many resources available to help with cybersecurity? Did you know that many of them are available for free to the trucking industry, because the government has designated trucking as part of the nation’s critical infrastructure? NMFTA director of enterprise security Antwan Banks has worked with these resources for years, and he shared the details on these resources and how they can help you in this blog.
What if you do everything to secure your enterprise and your fleet, only to end up compromised anyway because one of your telematics vendors is not secure? We’re developing a solution for that problem, and NMFTA’s team wrote about it here.
One of the most troubling threats to trucks involves cyberattacks on sensors. Ryan Gerdes, Ph.D. of Virginia Tech is one of the nation’s leading experts on sensor cybersecurity, and Dr. Gerdes gave us an insightful interview on the potential threats and what can be done about them. Here is where you can find that.
Speaking of all these threats, have you ever wondered what the 10 most serious cybersecurity threats are to the trucking industry? Antwan covered them for you – as well as ideas on how to respond – here.
Can you imagine getting hacked just because you used a public charging port to charge your phone or computer? Yes, it’s possible. It’s called juice jacking, and Antwan also offered the low-down on that here.
In the event you suffered an attack and did lose your data, would you be able to recover it? You stand an excellent chance if you follow the advice Antwan offered in this blog post.
What about cybersecurity insurance? You may have some. But do you have enough? And are you sure you understand the terms of your policy? You might be required to do certain things in order to keep the policy viable. We’ve got insight on that here.
Penetration testing is an exercise that helps companies find out where they are vulnerable to cyberattacks. It involves a white-hat hacker who breaks into your system to show you what you need to know – and do. We explain all that in this piece.
Do you know the power of two-factor authentication and gateways in helping to protect your fleet against things like diagnostic system attacks? We’ve got the details for you here.
And finally, have you built a culture of security within your organization? Here’s how you can do that.
Now that’s some excellent reading you can do during Cybersecurity Awareness Month! But if you want to fire up the grill and celebrate with some steaks, we won’t object to that either. The most important thing is to keep your enterprises and your assets safe. We’re glad to be here every day to help the industry with that.
