Cyber incidents are becoming a major threat to business continuity

Cybersecurity has become the dominant business continuity fear – and ports, sitting at the choke points of global trade, are likely in the firing line.

New research from supply chain intelligence firm Zero100 suggests this anxiety is no longer abstract. In a survey of COOs at $1 bn-plus companies, more than a third (35%) think a cyber incident is the single biggest threat to continuity over the next year, well ahead of geopolitical instability (20%), trade policy shocks (16%) and labour disruption (8%).

Ransomware attackers usually want to get paid, and that often means going after private sector companies where downtime bleeds revenue and customers immediately.

Ninety percent of cyber attacks come from an email with an attachment. From there, a compromised desktop becomes a compromised network and, in a connected logistics world, that network is rarely isolated.

Ports look like prime targets. Ports do not need a top-grade hack to suffer similar consequences. They just need the wrong file opened in the wrong place. The uncomfortable trade-off at the heart of port digitisation is that the more parties you connect, the more attack surface you create – unless you connect them in a way that raises the security floor for everyone.

There’s evidence ports are already wrestling with this reality. Seattle, for instance, disclosed a cyberattack in August 2024 that led to system outages and triggered incident response and recovery work with external partners.

Source: theloadstar.com