A truck is waiting. A carrier emails new factoring instructions. Before you act, know how your team will verify the request—and keep operations moving if email goes down.
A convincing email can disrupt more than email
A carrier’s email asks for new factoring details. A customer wants a last-minute delivery change. The request may look routine, but an email address or familiar thread does not prove who sent it.
If someone gets into a brokerage mailbox, they may see shipment details or send messages from the account. And when a TMS is unavailable, staff may struggle to confirm appointments, find documents, or invoice customers. A few clear checks can help protect both the information and the operation.
Eight cybersecurity checks for freight brokers
Keep the process simple enough to follow during a busy dispatch:
- Secure the accounts used for email, your TMS, load boards, and payments. Give each person a separate login, turn on MFA where available, and ask your IT provider to review account recovery and administrator access.
- Verify payment changes by calling a number already in your records—not one in the change request. Require a second approval for new bank details or factoring instructions, and record who confirmed them.
- Confirm changes to pickup, delivery, drivers, or equipment through a contact you already trust. An MC or USDOT record can help identify a business; it cannot confirm who sent the message.
- Practice real decisions with staff: a carrier-portal login request, an unexpected attachment, or a last-minute destination change. Make sure everyone knows when to pause and whom to contact.
- Keep devices updated and review who can connect remotely. Staff should verify unexpected IT-support requests before installing software or allowing someone to take control.
- Give employees and vendors access only to the records they need. Review permissions when roles change, remove former users promptly, and share documents through approved systems.
- Ask what happens if your TMS or email is unavailable. Know which records can be restored, test backups you control, and keep a secure way to coordinate active loads until systems return.
- Decide who leads the response, contacts IT, pauses payments or load changes, and updates customers and carriers. Keep those contacts available outside your email.
If email or your TMS goes down
For a suspected email compromise, call your IT provider using a number you already trust. Ask them to review sign-ins, forwarding rules, recovery settings, and account changes. Keep the suspicious messages, and verify active load and payment instructions outside the affected email account.
If the TMS is unavailable, use your continuity plan to track active loads and key decisions, then reconcile those records when service returns. If money has gone to a suspected fraudulent account, call your bank promptly. Report suspected online crime to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
How Securing Your Business can help
Security Awareness Training gives employees practice with suspicious requests and payment changes. The $1,995 Business Security Baseline verifies agreed internal safeguards and available evidence for businesses with up to 25 employees.
The free Zero-Access Business Exposure Review checks public signals around domains, email, websites, and internet-facing services. It does not inspect private mailboxes or verify internal controls.
Related resources
Help your team verify before a load or payment changes
Security Awareness Training gives employees short practice with suspicious requests and payment changes. The $1,995 Business Security Baseline verifies agreed internal safeguards and evidence for businesses with up to 25 employees.