According to TheRegister.com, cybercriminals are increasingly orchestrating lucrative cargo thefts alongside organized crime groups in a modern resurgence of attacks on freight companies. Proofpoint researchers Ole Villadsen and Selena Larson have attributed nearly two dozen recent campaigns with high confidence to cybercriminals infecting US logistics companies with remote monitoring and management tools, working with organized crime to collect and sell stolen goods. The attacks begin by compromising broker load board accounts to post fake shipments, then using malicious RMM installations to hijack legitimate freight operations. CargoNet’s Q3 2025 report shows $111.88 million in stolen goods from 772 thefts, with the average stolen shipment value doubling to $336,787 compared to the previous year. This sophisticated collaboration represents a fundamental shift in cargo crime methodology that demands immediate industry attention.
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The Perfect Storm of Supply Chain Vulnerability
What makes this criminal partnership so effective is the convergence of three critical vulnerabilities in modern logistics. First, the digital transformation of freight brokerage has created attack surfaces that didn’t exist a decade ago. Load boards and digital bidding systems, while efficient, lack the robust security protocols of traditional financial systems. Second, the pressure-cooker environment of logistics—where minutes matter and billions in goods move daily—creates perfect conditions for social engineering. When trucking companies are rushing to secure loads, they’re less likely to scrutinize suspicious requests. Third, the physical nature of cargo theft has always required local knowledge and distribution networks, which organized crime groups provide. The cybercriminals handle the digital intrusion while their physical counterparts manage the actual theft and resale operations.
The Economic Drivers Behind Digital Cargo Theft
The staggering economics make this criminal enterprise particularly attractive. With average stolen shipment values reaching $336,787, the return on investment for these operations dwarfs many other forms of cybercrime. Unlike data breaches where stolen information must be monetized through complex underground markets, physical goods have immediate resale value. The targeting of high-value commodities like computer hardware, cryptocurrency mining equipment, and copper—all trading at premium prices—shows sophisticated market awareness. This isn’t random theft; it’s strategic asset acquisition based on real-time commodity pricing and demand analysis. The criminal groups essentially function as shadow distributors, leveraging their cyber capabilities to source inventory without the costs of legitimate business operations.
The Unique Defense Challenges
Traditional security measures are inadequate against this hybrid threat. Cybersecurity teams typically focus on data protection and system integrity, while physical security concentrates on warehouse protection and truck tracking. This criminal methodology exploits the gap between these domains. The use of legitimate RMM tools like N-able and ScreenConnect makes detection exceptionally difficult, as these applications belong in corporate environments. The social engineering tactics are carefully tailored to the logistics industry, using industry-specific terminology and processes that wouldn’t raise red flags in standard security training. Most concerning is the target-agnostic approach—attackers aren’t going after specific companies but exploiting any vulnerability they find, making comprehensive defense nearly impossible for individual organizations.
The Coming Wave of Hybrid Criminal Operations
This represents just the beginning of a much larger trend toward hybrid criminal operations. We should expect to see this model replicated across other industries where digital systems control physical assets. The automotive industry, with its increasingly connected supply chains and high-value components, seems particularly vulnerable. Pharmaceutical distribution, luxury goods, and even agricultural commodities could face similar threats. The criminal innovation here isn’t the technology or the theft method individually, but the seamless integration of both. As RFQ scams and other social engineering tactics become more refined, we’ll likely see specialization within these criminal networks—some groups focusing exclusively on initial access, others on physical operations, creating an underground ecosystem of criminal service providers.
The Necessary Industry Response
Combating this threat requires unprecedented collaboration between cybersecurity firms, logistics companies, law enforcement, and insurance providers. The traditional siloed approach to security must give way to integrated threat intelligence sharing that spans digital and physical domains. Logistics companies need to implement multi-factor authentication and behavioral analytics on load board platforms, while developing verification protocols for shipment redirects that can’t be easily spoofed. Insurance providers will likely drive much of this change through premium adjustments and coverage requirements, creating economic incentives for better security practices. The most effective defense may be blockchain-based shipment tracking and smart contracts that create immutable records of ownership and routing changes, though widespread adoption remains years away.
The convergence of cyber and physical criminal operations represents one of the most significant security challenges of the coming decade. As digital systems continue to control more physical world operations, the attack surface for these hybrid crimes will only expand. The logistics industry’s response to this threat will serve as a critical case study for other sectors facing similar convergence risks.
