Cyberattack in the 3PL Industry

Causality

Cyberattacks, when mentioned, are often thought and/or tied into political specifically in regards to current President Donald Trump and his relationship with Russian leader, Putin. Bots, fake social media accounts, cyber snooping and countless other accusations have been mentioned between the two in regards to cyberattacks and/or hacking. For the 3PL industry, these terms are heard of, but most lack direct experience. Technical staff members were quick on their feet by “proactively shut down some systems” to proactively help and further hacking. In San Diego’s case, cyber-attackers gained access to a few secure databases and then proceeded to block out the team by changing current and adding new passwords. This specific methodology, otherwise known as ransomware, is a very common hacking approach since most cyber-attackers are simply interested money.

As reported by Katie Pyzyk at SmartCitiesDrive– “Cities and municipally-tied entities realize the increasing threat from ransomware and other various cyberattacks, and they’re taking better preventative measures as well as increased training for potential attacks. This summer, Houston carried out a large-scale, three-day cyberattack training exercise, and the Manhattan, NY district attorney encouraged cities to work together to achieve greater cyber protections. Collaborative prevention is a critical buffer because hackers often try to cause the most widespread damage as possible to get what they want, such as targeting a major supply chain hub — the Port of San Diego — that could have ripple effects throughout a variety of industries. Port attacks can bring the movement of goods to a halt in the targeted country, but they could also slow or stop operations in any country that ships goods to or from the affected port. Ransomware attacks can cause greater panic than other types of cyberattacks such as data breaches because of the level of crippling disruption they cause.”

As further mentioned by Gurdus- “We responded to over 600 breaches last year,” Mandia said. “I would say over 80 percent of them were state-sponsored or state-condoned, meaning the heads of the state or the heads of certain agencies of that state knew the attacks were ongoing, but there’s no risk or repercussions to the attackers.” Mandia’s statements come at a time when cyberattacks on both Wall Street and Main Street, with tech giants warning consumers about the billions of cyberattacks that happen every day and others fretting about how cyber-warfare could affect the 2018 midterm elections. One of Mandia’s top concerns was the lack of “segregation” between government, enterprise and individuals’ networks, he said, cautioning that as the lines are blurred, hackers will likely go after more vulnerable targets and cause malware to “ripple” out through various systems.”

Time will determine the extent of the damage and, more importantly, who the next victim will be. More information about the incident can be found here, after The Port of San Diego was able to move forward on some movement. Once of the ways the team was able to counter the cyberattack was through transparent technology- using real-time tracking on various assets to easily see where they are and compared that information with the what the cyberattacker was manipulating. WHSEHub, powered by FreightHub, follows the same transportation and warehousing methodology. Transparency naturally acts as a line of cyber-defense since it forces those involved to be clear and upfront with their operations.