The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned the transportation and logistics industry about a sharp increase in cyber cargo theft, with estimated losses in the United States and Canada reaching nearly $725 million by 2025.
The agency said in a public service announcement Wednesday that threat actors have been infiltrating the computer systems of brokers and freight carriers via spoofed emails and fake web links since at least 2024.
For example, in February, the typosquatting monitoring platform Have I Been Squatted reported that the financially motivated threat group Diesel Vortex was stealing credentials from freight and logistics operators in the US and Europe in phishing attacks that had been running since September 2025 and used 52 domains.
Cargo Theft Attack Flow (FBI)
Attackers first compromise broker or carrier accounts, luring employees to phishing websites that install remote monitoring software and then gain undetected access to the targeted company's systems.
In the next step, they post tens of thousands of fake freight listings, tricking legitimate carriers into downloading malicious files and then accepting real shipments under a stolen carrier identity. The cargo is diverted to accomplice drivers, stolen for resale, and in some cases, the criminals also demand ransom for the location of the diverted cargo.
In its 2025 Internet Crime Report, released earlier this month, the FBI said that IC3 received more than 1 million complaints last year, linked to nearly $21 billion in reported losses from various cybercrimes, including investment fraud, tech support fraud, business email compromise, and data breaches.