Cybercrime targeting the transportation sector is nothing new, but it has entered a new phase. This phase is defined not by opportunistic attacks on poorly secured organizations, but by targeted attacks carried out by specialized criminal enterprises. Modern cybercrime groups share remarkable similarities with legitimate enterprises, with recruiting pipelines, training programs, and functional specializations across their organizations.
This evolution has fundamentally changed how attacks are planned, executed, and scaled.
The 2026 NMFTA Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report makes clear that today’s attackers are not reliant on lone actors doing everything themselves. Instead, access brokers, social engineers, ransomware operators, and even “customer service” teams work together as parts of a whole, with devastating effectiveness. This model allows criminals to move faster than defenders by exploiting weaknesses across people, processes, and technology simultaneously. As noted in the 2026 trends report, breakout times (the time between initial access and lateral movement in a target environment) have continued to shrink, reaching uncomfortably short times over the past year.
This shift has tilted the balance in favor of adversaries who often understand the complexity of modern, interconnected systems better than the defenders that manage them. This is not a failure of defenders, but the reflection of a simple truth: Attackers often have more time and resources to devote themselves to finding successful entry points than most defenders have to secure increasingly complex networks of systems and processes.
The lesson is clear, defending against this new type of attacker requires a new approach to security. These attacks are not succeeding because of exotic zero-day exploits, but because our defenses were not designed for this adversary, or for this level of complexity. Too often cybersecurity is still seen as a technical discipline under an IT department. This is a mistake. Cybersecurity must be a core component of every business process, onboarding and offboarding workflow, integration, and purchasing decision.
When a culture of cybersecurity is woven into the fabric of an organization, weak points between the processes start to disappear. Overlapping controls trip up social engineering attacks and employees are empowered to report suspicious activity or attempted deviations from normal processes in real time.
Cybersecurity must be a core component of every business process, onboarding and offboarding workflow, integration, and purchasing decision.
Complexity is the enemy of security. The solution to this challenge lies in reducing complexity where possible but also embedding security-informed process design throughout the organization. This includes designing cybersecurity training around real workflows, reducing implicit trust in business processes, and deploying technology that detects behavioral anomalies in real time, not just known threat signatures.
Resilience depends not on any single control or technology, but on how well people, processes, and technology work together. As cyber criminals continue to refine their operations and increase collaboration in the name of efficiency, the advantage will belong to organizations that reduce complexity for legitimate operations while deliberately introducing friction for attackers.
Start rolling forward; add another tool to the toolbox by downloading, reviewing, and acting upon the recommendations that are described in the 2026 trends report.
Check out the 2026 NMFTA Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report for the full breakdown of all of the trends (new and recurring) that you need to be prepared for this year, register for the upcoming NMFTA cybersecurity webinar set for 1:00 pm ET on Thursday, January 22, 2026.
Additionally, be sure to register for updates on the 2026 NMFTA Cybersecurity Conference. This is the trucking industry’s only cybersecurity event. The call for abstracts is currently open, and early-bird registration is coming soon in February: www.nmftacyber.com
