Published in TMC Fleet Maintenance & Technology magazine Spring 2025

Why Multi-Factor Authentication Matters for Trucking Companies

By Mark Zachos

When it comes to cybersecurity in trucking, it is important to remember the extent of just how much the industry encompasses. There are computerized tools for everything from diagnostics and fuel management to payroll and driver hours to route planning and other logistics. These tools play a big part in keeping wheels on the road, and without proper security, can open a trucking company up to a cyberattack.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a valuable tool that can be implemented on computer systems and accounts to help individuals and organizations ward off cyberattacks by protecting critical information and data.

“MFA is a layered approach to securing physical and logical access where a system requires a user to present a combination of two or more different authenticators to verify a user’s identity for login,” according to the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “MFA increases security because even if one authenticator becomes compromised, unauthorized users will be unable to meet the second authentication requirement and will not be able to access the targeted physical space or computer system.”

The way it works is that in addition to simply entering a password or personal identification number (PIN) to gain access to an account protected with MFA, users are also required to present at least one extra piece of evidence to prove they are legitimate. This evidence typically falls into three categories:

1. Something you know – like your password or a PIN
2. Something you have – like a smartphone, a USB key or a security token
3. Something you are – like your fingerprint or facial recognition

“Typically, the second factor we use is ‘something we have,’ such as our smart phone with access to email or an authenticator app, a smart card … or a token that generates a unique code based on a complex algorithm,” explained Ryan A. Higgins, Chief Information Security Officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce, in a 2022 Cybersecurity Awareness Month post. “More companies and organizations are offering MFA as an option by emailing you a code or using an authenticator app.”

Why Should the Trucking Industry Care About MFA?

Since trucking companies handle things like client contracts, delivery schedules payroll information and other sensitive information, it causes the industry to be an appealing target for cybercriminals. MFA makes it much more difficult for hackers to break into an account, even if a hacker somehow gets hold of a password or another single layer of authentication.

Take, for example, phishing attacks. The most careful employee can still accidentally click a bad link. But with MFA enabled, even if an account password gets compromised in a phishing attack, there is a high chance that hackers will not be able to come up with a second authenticator needed to log in. Thus, access to that account will be denied.

A single cyber breach can shut down operations, costing a company time, money and its reputation. MFA can help fleets protect GPS tracking, telematics and electronic logging devices (ELDs), all of which are vulnerable to attacks. A cybercriminal gaining access to any of these systems could disrupt routes, delay deliveries or even endanger driver safety.

And for businesses that handle government contracts or sensitive goods, MFA is often seen as a best practice to protect fleet information and to meet compliance standards.

How MFA Works in the Real World

Say a dispatcher needed to log in to a company’s logistics portal. With MFA, the dispatcher likely first would enter a password (something they know). Next, the dispatcher would receive a cellphone notification (something they have) or, if it is a newer system, they might also scan a fingerprint (something they are).

Only after verifying at least two of these factors would the dispatcher gain access. So even if someone stole a password, that cyberthief would hit a dead end without access to at least one other factor.

Here are some ways fleets can apply MFA:

1. Start with Critical Systems – Identify which systems are most crucial to your operations. Implement MFA there first.

1. Educate Your Team – Beyond installing new tech, it’s about getting buy-in from your drivers, dispatchers and office staff. Explain how MFA protects not just the company but also employees’ personal data.
2. Choose the Right Tools – There is no shortage of MFA solutions out there. Some integrate directly with the software you are already using. Pick a solution that is user-friendly for your team.
3. Make It Trucking-Friendly – The trucking industry has unique challenges – drivers are on the move, often working irregular hours. Make sure your MFA system is accessible on mobile devices and does not require perfect cell service to work.
4. Plan for Exceptions – What happens if someone loses their phone or their fingerprint scanner doesn’t work? Have a backup plan in place, like security questions or a temporary code system, so operations do not grind to a halt.

In the trucking industry, where every minute counts and margins can be razor-thin, the last thing an organization wants is to deal with the chaos of a cyberattack. MFA is a smart, cost-effective way to protect business, drivers and customers.

“Most people accessing services online have relied exclusively on passwords to protect their accounts, yet passwords have proven to be a weak link on their own due to the sheer number we are asked to memorize and how effective computer programs are at cracking passwords,” said Higgins. “This is where MFA helps overcome these inherent weaknesses and better protect us all. Adoption of a second authentication factor increases confidence that the right individual is accessing the right system or service.”

About the Author

 Mark Zachos

Mark Zachos is a vehicle communications and cybersecurity expert for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International and the American Trucking Associations (ATA) Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC). He is the owner and president of DG Technologies in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the director of the Vehicle Cyber Engineering Lab at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he also teaches, and he runs the Cybersecurity Skills Station at TMC SuperTech each year.

For further information:

Dearborn Group, Inc.
33604 West Eight Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
1 (248) 888-2000
sales@dgtech.com

General Contact:

John McNelis
Sales and Marketing Manager
jmcnelis@dgtech.com

Visit our website: www.dgtech.com
Our Services Portal:  https://www.truck-connect.com/

Follow us!
X: x.com/DGTechnologies
Facebook: facebook.com/vehiclenetworksolutions
Instagram: Instagram.com/dg_technologies/
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Staying Cybersafe: Essential cybersecurity tips for trucking fleets

Simple mistakes, such as reusing passwords or clicking unknown links, can expose fleets to costly cyberattacks.

Mark Zachos     Oct. 28, 2025

Key takeaways

• Simple errors, such as reusing passwords or clicking unknown links, can expose fleets to cyberattacks.
• Phishing and AI-driven scams increasingly target fleet employees to access sensitive systems.
• Regular updates, strong passwords, multifactor authentication, and data backups reduce cyber risks.

While it is common today to see cyberattacks and online breaches in the news, for those who have not felt their effects firsthand, it may feel far-removed. To keep it that way, it is more important than ever now to understand that without consistent monitoring and proper precautions, a cyberattack can happen to anyone, and many attacks are actually caused by simple mistakes that could be made by any person at any level in any organization.

Common mistakes that put fleets at risk

Things as simple as clicking on an attachment or a link in an incoming email or using the same password for multiple online accounts can trigger an attack, creating problems not only for the individual but potentially leading to a fleet’s infiltration or even shutdown.

This summer, researchers for Cybernews reported discovering lists of billions of exposed usernames and passwords from major platforms, including Google, Apple, and Facebook. According to the June article, it was not known who compiled the data or where it came from, but cybercriminals were at least partly responsible for it. Its disclosure potentially puts millions of users at risk for identity theft, account takeovers, and targeted phishing

Since the breach, Google has been advising Gmail users to update their passwords. In a Google Cloud blog post titled “The Cost of a Call: Voice Phishing to Data Extortion,” the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) spelled out a recently reported tactic involving hackers pretending to be customer support representatives from companies like Google or Apple.

Through deceptive emails and phone calls, known as phishing and vishing (voice phishing), attackers attempt to manipulate users’ trust and talk them into handing over passwords, multifactor authentication codes, and other sensitive information. Once divulged, these details can give hackers access to individual victims’ accounts, which can even ultimately mean access to entire companies’ computer systems.

GTIG specifically mentioned Salesforce, a cloud-based software company that works in partnership with Google, and stated it has been tracking “a financially motivated threat cluster that specializes in voice phishing campaigns specifically designed to compromise organizations’ Salesforce instances for large-scale data theft and subsequent extortion.”

According to the post, attackers were able to repeatedly breach networks because their operators were so convincing at impersonating IT support personnel. The report made it clear that, as a result, neither Google nor Salesforce had been breached at the company level. “In all observed cases, attackers relied on manipulating end users, not exploiting any vulnerability inherent to Salesforce.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, cybercrime is increasingly involving artificial intelligence (AI). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) San Francisco Field Office issued a release last year warning about perpetrators who use AI in their cyber scams:

“In addition to traditional phishing tactics, malicious actors increasingly employ AI-powered voice and video cloning techniques to impersonate trusted individuals, such as family members, co-workers, or business partners. By manipulating and creating audio and visual content with unprecedented realism, these adversaries seek to deceive unsuspecting victims into divulging sensitive information or authorizing fraudulent transactions.”

Former special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office, Robert Tripp, was quoted in the release, “As technology continues to evolve, so do cybercriminals’ tactics. Attackers are leveraging AI to craft highly convincing voice or video messages and emails to enable fraud schemes against individuals and businesses alike.” He added, “These sophisticated tactics can result in devastating financial losses, reputational damage, and compromise of sensitive data.”

Unfortunately, cybercrime is not going away, and any individual or organization using devices that connect to the internet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular networks are vulnerable to an attack. Obviously, it is important to follow the basics, such as creating strong passwords, avoiding using the same login credentials for multiple accounts, using two-factor authentication, and not clicking on links or attachments unless you know and trust who sent them.

Practical steps to protect fleet data and operations

Following are some additional, equally important steps from the April 7, 2024, International Security Journal article, “12 Ways to Prevent Cyber Crime,” by Simon Burge:

• Keep software and devices updated to patch vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
• Install reputable antivirus and anti-malware software and keep it updated.
• Use a virtual private network (VPN) when accessing the internet from unsecured networks, including public Wi-Fi networks.
• Don’t save passwords on your browser. Instead, use a secure password manager or memorize them.
• Limit the personal information you share on social media and adjust your privacy settings.
• Back up important data regularly onto external devices or to the cloud.
• Disconnect the compromised system/device from the internet, change your passwords, run an anti-virus scan, inform the relevant authorities, and notify your bank or other affected institutions if you suspect a breach.

About the Author

 Mark Zachos

Mark Zachos is a vehicle communications and cybersecurity expert for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International and the American Trucking Associations (ATA) Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC). He is the owner and president of DG Technologies in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the director of the Vehicle Cyber Engineering Lab at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he also teaches, and he runs the Cybersecurity Skills Station at TMC SuperTech each year.

For further information:

Dearborn Group, Inc.
33604 West Eight Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
1 (248) 888-2000
sales@dgtech.com

General Contact:

Mr. John McNelis
Sales and Marketing Manager
jmcnelis@dgtech.com

Visit our website: www.dgtech.com
Our Services Portal:  https://www.truck-connect.com/

Follow us!
X: x.com/DGTechnologies
Facebook: facebook.com/vehiclenetworksolutions
Instagram: Instagram.com/dg_technologies/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@DGTechnologies

Mark Zachos Talks Cybersecurity on TMC Tech Talk

Robert Braswell, TMC executive director and host of Tech Talk with TMC on The Dave Nemo Show on Sirius Satellite Radio, sat down earlier this year with DG Technologies president Mark Zachos to talk about cybersecurity in trucking.

Robert Braswell: Mark Zachos is a longtime TMC member. He’s an expert in truck technology, vehicle data adapters and onboard vehicle networks and systems. We’re going to take a look at what drivers need to know about cybersecurity and trucking. He currently chairs our Cybersecurity Task Force, so he knows of what he speaks, and he’s been working on developing a number of recommended practices on the subject.

Mark Zachos: Let’s talk a little about artificial intelligence and how that’s changing the whole way you look at cybersecurity. Because now it’s not just that we’re looking out for the bad actors who are using the computers and the software systems, now it’s the software systems themselves that are bad actors that we have to look out for.

We use these things to help us do calculations. For example, fleets have tons and tons of data coming in from all over their operations, the old-fashioned way – typing into spreadsheets or importing data files. And then you’ve got to manually write a program. But these AI machine learning agents, as we call them, are very capable of being asked a question and giving answers. The real magic still becomes the human in the loop because you have to ask the question properly. So, they’re still reliant on humans, at least at this point.

RB: So, the garbage in, garbage out theory still holds true? You’re only going to get out what you put in?

MZ: Right, but you’re going to get it faster. So, that’s the thing, everyone wants to adopt the technology because we want it faster. Going back to the attackers, the cybersecurity bad guys, they, too, use these artificial intelligence programs. When I say bad guys, what I mean is, there are actually two categories – the state actors, those are the ones in China or in Russia trying to attack our infrastructure and do bad things to our country. They’re also generating something called ransomware as a service, spinning out little programs that small time, medium-sized criminal organizations could use here in the United States or anywhere in the world. Criminals pick up on that software that was developed and then use that as a method to spam or send phishing emails out to folks like us or to fleets.

RB: That’s interesting. And, it’s getting more and more sophisticated all of the time. With that in mind, what are some of the new projects your S.5 fleet maintenance management study group and S.12 onboard vehicle electronics study group are working on to thwart some of the bad actors out there?

MZ: The S.5 group is working toward a new recommended practice (RP) on equipment acquisition to give guidance to those buying trucks, maintenance equipment or computer equipment that will be cybersecure. What those recommended guidelines include is that the vendors you’re buying from need to have secure backing, meaning in their systems – where they do the engineering or the distribution or the pushing out of new software patches to you, the end customer – they make sure they’ve got a secure firewall, encrypted downloads and this sort of thing. You should put those things right there in your purchase order for that equipment.

On the S.12 side, the onboard electronics and the connection side, we want to make sure with those vehicles or that equipment, that we’re buying the maintenance equipment as well as what connects to trucks. That when you do the maintenance activity, it’s done in a secure manner. Again, the interface, the communication – the handshake between the maintenance computer and the truck, between the maintenance computer and the backend server, all of that – is secure and updated.

RB: It used to be that when you talked about cybersecurity, you usually thought about ransomware. And that was more of a back-office kind of a thing, maybe hitting the finance side of it. So, it would cripple a company’s ability to bill customers or collect payments. But now, the emphasis is expanding to include the onboard side of trucking. The actual vehicle itself and the support services that keep the vehicle up and running, such as the vehicle data adapters, the computer tools that you use to diagnose and reprogram the vehicle, some that still require you to plug in through the OBD port. Some of it can be done wirelessly and that is a great benefit, but it would also give the opportunity for more cyber intrusion, wouldn’t it?

MZ: Yeah. Anything that touches the truck, either wirelessly – Bluetooth, wifi, cellular – or plug in, there’s a vulnerability.

We have those recommended practices on cybersecurity and I would just put out there the value of something like that. The ideas and protection and guidance that we publish in our cybersecurity recommended practices, they’re going to save a lot of money. You know, these ransomware games are getting smarter and smarter. What we need to do as a community, as an industry, is just raise the bar so they go after the lower hanging fruit.

RB: The J1939, of course, is the backbone of the electrical communication system. It’s the data bus of the vehicle and it’s probably one of the points of the truck that could be the most vulnerable when it comes to cybersecurity, isn’t it?

MZ: What we have is a wide-open bus. All the messages, the network, everything’s been defined and given to the community to use for recommended practices for engineering new vehicles for hooking up diagnostic tools to the OBD port. But those documents are also available to AI bots. They actually can scan. That’s how they get their intelligence. They go out and look at what’s been posted on the internet. It’s just amazing what’s out there, and they learn from that. And they’re able to create attack scenarios, plugging into the OBD bus and downloading them – a bad calibration that when your vehicle hits 50 miles an hour shuts it down or goes into a D rate or something like that. You can actually have the AI agent create software to do that in attacks and they are doing that. We teach that, actually, a little bit in our SuperTech competition. That’s going to be new this year. We’re going to add a little AI to our SuperTech Cybersecurity Station coming up in the fall. So, there’ll be an adventure there.

The J1939 network is built to be open and easy to work with so that all the different vendors can communicate seamlessly so the commercial vehicle operates like we expect it to operate. The problem is that it leaves you vulnerable for certain cybersecurity exposure. But there is a new cybersecurity standard at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) that’s there to help protect the network and maybe close some of those opportunities. There are actually two of them. One is called J1939-91A, and that’s more of a document for new equipment – putting firewalls on the trucks and networks, separation, you know, technical things like that when you build new vehicles.

Then there’s another called J1939-91C and that one is very interesting because it does not depend on passwords directly. It’s more using something that the cybersecurity researchers know well from the banking industry or from other industries called PKI. It uses something called public key infrastructure. Basically, you’ve got to have security built in from the ground up for the communication so you can verify all these messages, you trust each other and this is brand new stuff for the trucking industry but it’s common technology for us. When you use your credit card, you don’t worry about it and that’s because the technology has been very good and stable, and we’re just bringing that into the vehicle now.

RB: What are some of the things that a driver can do to prevent cybersecurity attacks? We understand that electronic logging devices (ELDs) have been in the news recently. What can a driver do when it comes to ELDs to protect themselves?

MZ: Part of the story is the same old, same old, right? The connection to wireless devices, either through Bluetooth connection from your phone or Wi-Fi connection. That data on the ELD has to go somewhere. First, it’s collected from the truck, but then it’s accumulated and transmitted somewhere. Somebody has to get that data. The security of the connections is paramount. Somebody can actually be in a truck stop and remotely connect to your vehicle, that’s not science fiction anymore. So having strong passwords, two-factor authentication, something physical that verifies that you have a good connection, that you trust the other side you’re talking to. I’m telling you, just a little bit of extra effort will go a long, long way to make you a lot more secure. And that includes that technology, where you’re picking out trains or buses, the little pictures and squares, Captcha, I think it’s called.

RB: So, you’re not talking to a bot.

MZ: Yeah, little things are really important and just knowing that, make sure you’re really careful about that USB port that can be the gateway to all sorts of cyber evils. It’s really important to make sure that you be aware and stay on top of the things that you hear about in the news so your vehicle isn’t compromised. Because especially, over the years and with the growing sophistication of the vehicle itself, the opportunities for cyber mischief onboard the vehicle, not just in the back office, are growing more and more all of the time.

RB: Mark, thank you for joining us. I’m looking forward to the new recommended practices that are going to be coming out of TMC, particularly on new equipment purchases because I think that baking in the cybersecurity protection when you’re spec’ing the vehicle is going to be a real advantage for a lot of fleet managers and equipment purchasers so they can increase their cybersecurity going forward.

For further information:

Dearborn Group, Inc.
33604 West Eight Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
1 (248) 888-2000
sales@dgtech.com

General Contact:

Mr. John McNelis
Sales and Marketing Manager
jmcnelis@dgtech.com

Visit our website: www.dgtech.com
Our Services Portal:  https://www.truck-connect.com/

Follow us!
X: x.com/DGTechnologies
Facebook: facebook.com/vehiclenetworksolutions
Instagram: Instagram.com/dg_technologies/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@DGTechnologies