Logistics cybersecurity · India
Logistics runs on connections — customers’ orders, carriers’ tracking, warehouse scanners, port systems — and a cyber attack on any of them turns into containers that do not move. This page lets you put a number on a stopped day, follows the path attackers take from a partner connection to the warehouse floor, and walks through what happened at JNPT, DP World, Blue Yonder and Ceva.
Reviewed 24 September 2026 · 9 sources cited
The short answer
Logistics cybersecurity is about keeping freight moving. Most incidents start with a stolen or guessed login, an exposed system or a partner’s connection, and end with a company disconnecting its own network to contain the attacker — which is what stops the trucks. Protect every remote and partner login with multi-factor authentication, segment warehouse and transport systems, know your SaaS vendors’ recovery plans, and rehearse running on manual processes.
Why logistics
A logistics business is a web of links to other people’s systems: customers’ order feeds and portals, carriers’ and brokers’ platforms, telematics on the trucks, handheld scanners in the warehouse, port and customs systems, and the software-as-a-service platforms that run transport and warehouse management. Each is a way in. And because operations depend on all of them, each is also a way to stop the business.
The pattern repeats. In November 2023 DP World Australia detected unauthorised access to its corporate network and disconnected it from the internet to contain the intruder. That worked — no ransomware was ever deployed — but land-side operations at its terminals stopped until 13 November, and clearing the backlog of 30,137 containers took until 20 November. The decision to disconnect, not the attack itself, is usually what halts the operation. Planning for that decision is most of the job.
Sometimes the business does not recover at all. In June 2023 attackers guessed an employee’s password at KNP Logistics, a UK group whose haulage firm was 158 years old; with no multi-factor authentication, they walked in and encrypted its data. The ransom was estimated at around £5 million, and the group went under with the loss of about 700 jobs. More often the damage comes through a supplier: in November 2024 ransomware at Blue Yonder, a supply-chain software provider, left a UK supermarket running warehouse management on a manual backup; in July 2026 an attack on Ceva Logistics disrupted eight of its European warehouses and exposed data belonging to its customers’ customers.
India has seen it at its busiest port. In February 2022 a suspected breach of the management information system at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port container terminal forced a ship to be rerouted to other terminals. Globally, Verizon’s 2026 data counted 652 confirmed breaches in transportation, 99% of them by outside attackers — most of them for money, but 15% for espionage.
Your numbers
Put in your own figures — the defaults are placeholders, not benchmarks. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Cost of this stoppage
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This is a floor, not a forecast: it leaves out ransom, customers who leave for good, and the cost to the businesses whose freight you carry. KNP Logistics did not survive its attack.
The attack path
The composite path behind most logistics incidents. Each step is a place to test — and a place the attack can be stopped.
A remote-access or email login without multi-factor authentication, a customer or carrier portal with a flaw, an API key for an order or tracking integration, or a telematics platform account. KNP’s attackers only had to guess one password.
External perimeter, remote access, portals and partner APIs
Office, warehouse, yard and gate systems on one network, one domain, one set of administrator accounts.
Active Directory privilege paths and network segmentation
Transport and warehouse management, yard and gate systems, handheld scanners, billing and customer tracking — some on-premises, some run by a SaaS provider.
Configuration and access review of TMS, WMS and their integrations
To contain the attacker, the company cuts itself off from the internet — and from customers, carriers and its own cloud systems. DP World Australia made exactly this choice in 2023.
Segmentation that lets you isolate part of the estate, not all of it
Gates close, picking stops, trucks wait and containers stack up — 30,137 of them in DP World Australia’s case, cleared ten days after detection.
The cost is set by how much you have to disconnect and how long manual fallback lasts. Segmentation and rehearsed fallbacks shrink both; multi-factor authentication on every remote and partner login closes the most common way in.
2022 to 2026
Each case described from the company’s own statements or reporting that quotes them. Figures that could not be confirmed at source are left out.
A suspected security breach of the management information system at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port container terminal led it to reroute a ship to other terminals. The same month, forwarder Expeditors shut down most of its operations worldwide after a ransomware attack.
Attackers guessed an employee’s password; with no multi-factor authentication they encrypted the group’s data. With a ransom estimated at about £5 million, the group collapsed and about 700 jobs were lost.
Unauthorised access detected on 10 November; the company disconnected its network from the internet, stopping land-side operations until 13 November. A backlog of 30,137 containers was cleared by 20 November. No ransomware was found; employee data was taken.
Ransomware disrupted the supply-chain software provider’s managed services hosted environment. A UK supermarket ran warehouse management on a manual backup, with supplier deliveries and product availability affected.
An attack beginning on 29 July disrupted eight of Ceva’s European warehouses, delaying shipments for its customers — some of whom said their own customers’ personal data had been stolen.
Different companies, one lesson: the disruption comes from how much has to be switched off, and for how long.
Evidence
Global breach patterns from Verizon’s transportation data, and the scale of the cases above. Each is linked in the sources.
Verizon’s figures cover transportation and warehousing breaches in its global dataset, not Indian ones specifically.
Where it goes wrong
Each drawn from the cases above, with what we would test.
What we test: Every internet-facing login, whether multi-factor authentication is enforced on each, and what one stolen account can reach.
What we test: Your integrations with each platform, the access its staff have to your data, and whether you have a tested manual fallback.
What we test: API authorisation between partners, key management and what each integration is allowed to do.
Next step
A 30-minute call with a practitioner who scopes around live operations. No charge, and no obligation.
Where SemperWise fits
Services are people doing the work; SemperWise One is the platform that keeps the evidence current between engagements. Each row says which.
“Our network, office to warehouse.”
External and internal network testing — remote access, Active Directory and the paths from the office to warehouse, yard and gate systems.
Network penetration testing“Our customer and carrier APIs.”
Authorisation between partners, key handling and what each integration can read or change, tested endpoint by endpoint.
API security testing“Our tracking portal and driver app.”
Testing of customer portals and driver and field apps — account takeover, one customer seeing another’s shipments, weak session handling.
Mobile app testing“What do we expose?”
Continuous discovery of internet-facing systems — remote-access gateways, forgotten portals, exposed management pages.
Attack surface management“Our software and service providers.”
Vendor assessments of TMS, WMS, telematics and IT providers, with their evidence kept and dated.
Vendor and questionnaire tooling“If it happens, what do we do?”
An incident-response retainer with a defined commitment, and runbooks for disconnection, manual fallback and the six-hour CERT-In report.
Managed security“Our dispatchers and drivers.”
Awareness sessions for the people attackers call and email — dispatch, customer service, finance and drivers.
Security trainingQuestions
What buyers in this sector ask us before they commit to anything.
Because stopped freight is expensive and visible, which puts pressure on the victim to pay, and because logistics businesses connect to many other companies’ systems, which gives them ways in. Verizon’s 2026 data counted 652 confirmed breaches in transportation, 99% of them by outside attackers; most were for money, but 15% were for espionage — the shipping data of a logistics firm reveals a great deal about its customers.
Stolen or guessed logins, and exposed systems. At KNP Logistics in 2023 attackers guessed one employee’s password and, with no multi-factor authentication, walked in. In Verizon’s 2026 transportation data, credentials were among the data compromised in 27% of breaches. Multi-factor authentication on every remote-access, email and administrator login is the single most effective step.
Start with how long operations would stop or run on manual fallback, the margin you lose per hour and how much of it you never recover, the costs that continue while nothing moves, and the one-off costs of recovery, penalties and detention. The calculator on this page does exactly that with your own numbers. Treat the result as a floor: it leaves out ransom, lost customers and the cost to the businesses whose freight you carry.
Your operation can stop even though your own systems were never touched, as supermarkets using Blue Yonder found in 2024. Ask each provider how it separates customers, how quickly it can restore service and what it will tell you during an incident; know what your integrations allow its staff to reach; and keep a manual fallback that you have actually practised.
Often, yes — DP World Australia’s decision to disconnect in 2023 contained the intruder before any ransomware was deployed. But disconnection is what stops the freight, so decide in advance what can be isolated separately, which systems must keep running, and how operations continue on manual processes. Segmentation turns “switch off everything” into “switch off this part”.
Yes. Under CERT-In’s April 2022 Directions, listed incidents — including ransomware, data breaches, unauthorised access and attacks on applications — must be reported within six hours of being noticed, with logs kept for 180 days in India. From about May 2027, a breach of personal data — customers’ addresses and phone numbers, drivers’ details — also triggers notice under the DPDP Act.
Treat every partner connection as an entry point. Give each partner its own credentials with the narrowest permissions it needs, rotate keys and set expiry, check on every request that the partner may see the shipment it asks for, log and watch partner traffic, and remove integrations that are no longer used. Test them as a partner would — and as a malicious partner would. See API security testing.
It can be. Telematics platforms hold live vehicle locations, routes and driver details, and often have web portals and apps with their own logins. Treat the provider like any other critical vendor: ask how customer data is separated and who can reach it, enforce multi-factor authentication on your accounts, and include the portal and app in testing where your agreement allows.
Checked by our research desk on 24 September 2026. Regulations and figures move; where a number here matters to a decision, follow it to the source.
Next step
A 30-minute call, no charge. You leave knowing which partner links, remote logins and exposed systems to test first, how your warehouse and transport systems would hold up, and what a realistic recovery rehearsal looks like — with a written scope and fixed price if testing makes sense.
