MONTERREY, NL. – The logistics and transportation sector is a significant target for cyberattacks, primarily ransomware, which accounts for around 10.9% of all victims of this type of crime.

Leonel Navarro, Global Information Security Practice VP & Offering Manager at Softtek , commented that, according to data from the Barcelona-Catalonia Logistics Center, this year supply chains have registered a 60% year-on-year increase in this type of incident.

“Why is this type of incident increasing? I think we have a hard time associating the effect that technology has on our daily lives, especially on the operations we carry out as part of our business. It is clearly a serious problem for companies because it stops their operations,” he said.

During the panel Cybersecurity Challenges in the Supply Chain within the Supply Chain Security Day 2024 , awarded by the  Security Cluster for International Trade, he also said that phishing is a problem for the sector.

He explained that this technique involves sending emails to victims in order to steal their information.

He mentioned that there has been an increase in the theft of credentials that aims to disrupt supply chains through the exposure of confidential information, data manipulation, route diversions, delivery delays, and of course the monetization of this data.

He also explained that, while through artificial intelligence, companies can obtain benefits in the optimization and efficiency of operations through accurate predictions of demand and inventory management, efficiency of logistics and distribution , improvement in efficiency in route design and time management, real-time monitoring, reduction of operating costs, to name a few, it also allows for the automation of various business processes.

However, it can also be used to optimize the execution of fraud or identity theft campaigns .

For this reason, Leonel Navarro mentioned that some strategies for supply chain assurance consist of identifying risk exposure , through the identification of critical systems and suppliers, their risk assessment and identification of vulnerabilities, the generation of policies according to the level of risk ” because we do not want an inefficient supply chain either .”

Additionally, develop incident response plans , strengthen cybersecurity tools, and very importantly, train employees and suppliers.

“There is a lot of work to be done. Cybersecurity is not just a technological problem, it is a business problem and in some countries it is a national security problem. Imagine that you need to bring food home and the supermarkets are empty, without food, because the supply chains do not work, it is a very relevant problem,” he said.

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